A team of scientists from universities in the UK, the US, and Brazil have described a new species of pistol shrimp in the journal Zootaxa. They named it after their favorite band, because it resembles them in a couple of ways.

Researchers have named a sonically super-powered shrimp after Pink Floyd, because of its bright colour and pistol-quick ability to blast enemies with sound.

The newly-discovered species of pistol shrimp, dubbed Synalpheus pinkfloydi, uses a big, bright-pink claw to shoot shockwaves at its foes, in its habitat off the Pacific coast of Panama.

Pistol shrimp are known for their ability to stun prey with a sonic blast by snapping their claws, which also produces a heat wave. Wouldn't you have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the international group of scientists discussed their rational for naming the species Synalpheus pinkfloydi? Read more about the research at CTV News. -via Dave Barry

(Image credit: Arthur Anker/Universidade Federal de Goiás)

It's common knowledge that you don't want to wear a red shirt if you are serving under Captain Kirk in Starfleet. Redshirts are usually security officers who accompany an away team down to a new planet, and they often get killed right off the bat. Earlier research shows that indeed, more red shirts were killed during the series than crew members wearing any other kind of uniform. But mathematician James Grime looked at the numbers in a different way. He gave a lecture called "Star Trek: The Math of Khan" at the Museum of Mathematics in New York, in which he used the statistics of the entire Enterprise crew, not just those who appeared on the original series, and not just those who died. He asserts that the idea that you are more likely to be killed if you are a redshirt is not true.

That claim, in fact, is false — more "redshirts" died on-screen than any other crew type (10 gold-shirted, which are command personnel; eight blue-shirted, who are scientists; and 25 red-shirted, Grime said), but that calculation fails to take into account that there are far more redshirts on the ship to start with than any other crew type.

In other words, we're looking at the probability that you are a redshirt if you die (58 percent) — what we want to know is the probability that you die if you're a redshirt, Grime said.

Grime used the "Star Trek" technical manual to find out how many of each crew type there were, which painted a different picture: out of 239 redshirts, 25 died, which is 10 percent. Out of 55 goldshirts, 10 died, which is 18 percent! So you are more likely to die as a goldshirt, Grime said.

It appears we've been led astray by the fact that the TV series only followed the top command of the Enterprise- those who appeared on the bridge. Of course, in the 1960s, the idea that other things went on in a fictional universe that didn't appear on camera was absurd. Grimes also covered Vulcan reproduction, computer paradoxes, and the Drake Equation. Read about Star Trek Math at Space.com. -via the A.V. Club

If you don't need subtitles to follow sound or translate a language, you rarely watch TV with them on. But those who do sometimes stumble upon out-of-context comedy treasure. Sometimes it's because of a bad translation, sometimes it's due to the titler trying to describe sound effects or something going on audibly off-camera (or even on-camera, which is even funnier), and sometimes they produce a double entendre.

The subreddit r/sadlygokarts takes ongoing submissions of these treasures. Dorkly collected some of the best in a gallery for your viewing pleasure.

The Avondale, Arizona, Police Department announced the acquisition of their new drug-sniffing bearded dragon -on April Fools Day in 2016. The drug-sniffing part was a joke, but the bearded dragon is real. His name is Iroh, and he's been the police department's mascot since then.

“Iroh has turned out to be a valuable member of the Avondale Police family,” according to a Facebook post on Feb. 15. “His skill set is so extensive that we have cross trained him in many areas.”

This week, Iroh was promoted from mascot to police officer. Get the whole story of Iroh and the cops who love him at AZ Family.  -via Fark

(Image credit: Avondale AZ Police Department)

When French prankster Rémi Gaillard goes on an Easter egg hunt, he's looking for nothing but the biggest, rarest eggs of all. In his latest caper, he comes running out from the bushes with a velociraptor egg -and the mother is following him!

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The hapless runner that encounters the scene suffers a brain overload, and will probably never be the same again. Aren't you glad Gaillard doesn't live near you? -via reddit

See more pranks from Rémi Gaillard. 

Britain has its share of "follies," or architectural structures that were built for vanity, a lark, or to show off one's wealth. As properties changed hands, they fell into disuse because they weren't suited for any practical purpose. But some of these buildings have been saved by the work of the Landmark Trust, which took responsibility and made them sound enough for an eccentric vacation stay, if nothing else. Shown here is Culloden Tower in North Yorkshire.

Built around 1746 to commemorate “Butcher” Cumberland’s victory over Bonnie Prince Charlie at the Battle of Culloden, Culloden Tower arguably has more room than many converted follies, but it’s original purpose was still primarily ornamental. Designed by architect Daniel Garrett and originally called the Cumberland Temple, the former folly had fallen into disrepair by the 1980s. Now faithfully restored by the Landmark Trust, it’s the perfect holiday retreat near Richmond on the edge of the beautiful Yorkshire Dales.

Read about five "follies" saved by the Landmark Trust that are now available to rent at Urban Ghosts. Three of them are towers, plus a temple that was later used as a cattle barn, and a pineapple-shaped home.

(Image credit: Paul Brooker)

When the communist government of Bulgaria collapsed in 1990, businesses sprouted everywhere. In cities, there wasn't enough room for all of them, so the "klek-shop" was born. These stores display their wares on city streets, but if you want to buy something, you must squat down, as the actual stores are in the basements of the buildings! The goods are sold through low windows. DeviantART member sograph photographed the klek-shops of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital city. See the entire gallery here. -via Everlasting Blort

(Image credit: sograph)

Check out this 1947 map called Map of the United States as Californians See It. The proportions are a little bit off. The state boasts the world's finest harbor in four locations, movie stars everywhere, and claims a few landmarks that aren't actually in California. The rest of the country is pretty bleak: people are cold, even in Florida, and death awaits them. No wonder everyone is headed to the West Coast! If you like this, you're going to love the book that it's from.

Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps, a new book by geographer Stephen Hornsby, collects 158 of these charming visuals, largely drawing on the Library of Congress’s extensive collection. “Because contemporary curators and librarians generally did not consider pictorial maps ‘geographic’ or ‘scientific,’ most libraries did not collect them and they are quite rare today,” as Ralph Ehrenberg, who heads the Library of Congress’s Geography and Map Division, writes in the book’s introduction. Though the first real pictorial map depicted the London Underground, artists and cartographers across the pond embraced the style wholeheartedly, forming what Ehrenberg calls “a uniquely American art form.”

See the above map and eight others from the book in large size, so you can read them, at mental_floss.

Norwegian musician Leo Moracchioli (previously at Neatorama) performs a metal version of Abba's 1976 disco song "Dancing Queen." He plays all the instruments and sings, while the Easter bunny dances with his young daughter. Is that weird enough for you?  

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The song works well, and he adds a killer solo. Despite the video length, the song is only four and a half minutes. -via Tastefully Offensive

The geysers and hot springs of Yellowstone National Park are a wonder of the natural world. They serve as vents for the geothermal energy below ground. And they are a delicate treasure that people have tried to ruin at every turn by throwing things into. This can alter the environment, sometimes permanently. And it started even before Yellowstone was a national park.

Yes, one of the most famous tales from that era is that an early expedition party used Old Faithful as a washing machine. According to an account shared by Frank D. Carpenter in his record of a trip to Yellowstone in 1877, The Wonders of Geyser Land, he and his traveling companions came upon Old Faithful and decided to experiment with “boiling” their clothes clean. The group put their soiled clothes in a pillowcase and threw it into the geyser’s cone. When it erupted, the clothes were sent flying over a hundred feet into the air. When they collected them, the churning, heated water had indeed cleaned them.

Emboldened by the results of their laundry experiment, they then clogged the geyser with “at least a thousand pounds of stones, trees, and stumps.” The geyser expelled all the rubbish and debris they’d choked the feature with, and they seemed pretty happy. As Carpenter says, “[Old Faithful] furnishes entertainment of unusual magnitude and duration.”

Even today, although it's illegal, people throw stuff into the geysers and springs. Sometimes specialists try to clean them out, but the process of doing so can cause damage to the delicate natural treasures. Read about the custom of throwing things into the geysers of Yellowstone at Atlas Obscura.

Sometimes actors go off-script while filming a movie, either intentionally or accidentally. It could be a last-minute idea, a joke, a way to cover up flubbing your lines, or just plain clumsiness. What's rare are those times that these moments are so good they ended up in the film.

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In this video, Looper explains great movie scenes that did not go as planned, but ended up even better for it. -via Laughing Squid

This year, The Washington Post discontinued its annual Peeps diorama contest, citing low participation, so the alternative weekly paper Washington City News stepped in and held a contest. They've announced a winner, and it's "The Peeple v. O.J. Simpson," by Larisa Baste. She said she worked on it 66+ hours, not counting the time she spent watching the O.J. docudrama series and documentaries to get the details right.

See more images of the winning diorama, plus the next eight place finishers at the Washington City Paper. -via Digg

The movie is still eight months away, but we're all excited to see the next episode in the Star Wars saga. The trailer for The Last Jedi premiere today at Star Wars Celebration in Orlando. And now we can all see it.

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Whoa, it seems that Luke is taking things pretty hard. The fans in Orlando sure liked it. No doubt we will see more trailers before December. -via mental_floss

Oh yeah, they unveiled the poster, too.

#TheLastJedi poster has been revealed. #SWCO pic.twitter.com/fqnf1bQtPu

— Star Wars (@starwars) April 14, 2017

Cali the cockatoo and Jackson the Maine Coon cat act out a scenario that may be familiar to you. Cali desperately wants some attention, and Jackson wants none of her shenanigans.

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I can see the speech bubbles about their heads now.

Cali: Pay attention to me! I like you; we can be friends!

Jackson: Scram! I'm a cat; you're just a bird. You are lucky I don't eat you.

Cali: Please? Come on, just for a little bit?

Jackson: Oh, all right… No! Someone might see us.

Their owner assures us that most of the time, they get along wonderfully. -via Tastefully Offensive

Think a machine can't do your job? Don't say that out loud, or someone will immediately invent one that can. Think that there's other things in life besides a job? Don't say that out loud, either, because the machines will replace that, too. But look ahead: the ones who own the machines can only soak up so much of the profit until there's no one left able to buy anything. This depressing story is brought to you by Alex Culang and Raynato Castro at Buttersafe.