A stray 4-month-old kitten in Louisville, Kentucky, helped himself to the remnants of a discarded can of soup and got his head wedged tight inside the can.

The kitten was brought in by MAS animal control officer Raymond Thomas on Monday, and was immediately taken to the veterinary staff, Gulbe said.

An initial attempt was made by veterinary assistant Brenda Keel to remove the can, but the kitten started crying. He was sedated and a pair of bolt-cutters were used to cut the can off of his head.

Gulbe said the kitten was also hypothermic and received medical attention to stabilize his condition.

Staff named the kitten "Campbell."

Campbell, who cleaned up well, is now up for adoption. Link -via Fark

(Image credit: Metro Animal Services)

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An android, meaning the Android phone mascot, dances up a storm in Taiwan. Impressive, for a guy in an inflatable costume! -via I Am Bored

The largest volcanic event in recorded history was the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815, which spewed so much rock and ash that the following year was known as "the Year Without a Summer." But that was small compared the the Toba Event, in which a volcano in Northern Sumatra erupted 73,000 years ago and spewed out 28 times as much debris -and may have wiped out most of the human population of the earth.

As the volcano erupted it deposited 6 meters of ash on parts of Malaysia and a 15 centimetres thick ash layer over the entire Indian subcontinent, and acid rain fell for years. The temperature of the planet fell abruptly 3–5°C and according to some (based on ice cores for Greenland) it jump -started the next global ice age.

It just so happens that this massive environmental catastrophe coincides with evidence for a massive human population decline resulting in a genetic bottleneck. According to the Toba catastrophe theory the resulting 6 to 10 year volcanic winter destroyed most of the vegetation in the area where humans would have been living and may have reduced the population to as few a 1000 breeding pairs.

There is some good evidence for this genetic bottleneck, and many geneticists feel that evidence suggests that all living humans, despite apparent variety, descend from a very small population, perhaps between 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs dating to about 70,000 years ago. It is also known that Eastern African chimpanzee, Bornean orangutan, central Indian macaque, and tigers, all recovered from population bottelnecks dating to around the same time. All of which would seem to fit neatly with the Toba super volcano event and the Toba catastrophe theory.

But as it always is in science nothing is neat or easy, and contradictory evidence is just as strong.

Today, what's left of the volcano is a huge, beautiful, water-filled crater called Lake Toba. But it's still a volcano, and may yet erupt again. Read more about it at Atlas Obscura. Link

Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and visiting lawman Steven Seagal went on a raid to a home in the West Valley area of Phoenix, where a man was suspected of cockfighting. The search warrant was executed as the SWAT team rolled into the neighborhood in armored vehicles led by a tank. They arrested Jesus Llovera during the raid Monday.

Llovera was alone in the house at the time of the arrest, and he was unarmed.

“I think taxpayers should be shocked,” said Robert Campus, Llovera’s attorney. Campus said he believes the operation costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Deputies had no probable cause to believe Llovera was armed or dangerous, according to Campus.

Campus said he believes the entire scene was basically a stage, to help actor Steven Seagal’s TV show, “Lawman.”

Seagal was riding in the tank.

The Sheriff’s Department has entered into a contract with Seagal and part of that contract gives Seagal carte blanche to go along with the sheriff as he arrests people.

Thousands of dollars in damages were made to the property and 115 birds were euthanized on the spot.

One neighbor was so frightened she called 911 to report the raid. http://www.kpho.com/news/27272012/detail.html -via reddit

Often we recognize and know a logo without ever really seeing what is there. Here are twelve company logos that incorporate motifs that you can easily miss if you never look closely, all explained to you. For example, what's that right in the middle of the Tostitos name?

The two t’s in the middle of the Tostitos logo are also guys sharing a tortilla chip, and the i in between them is a bowl of salsa on some sort of pedestal. This. Changes. Everything.

Yes it does. For one thing, I now crave salsa for lunch. See all twelve logos at Geekosystem. Link

Legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor has died of heart failure. Born in England to American parents, Taylor {wiki} came to live in the US in 1939 and appeared in her first movie at age nine. Her striking beauty was partially due to a mutation that gave her a double row of eyelashes. Taylor acted in 70 movies and produced three. She was married eight times, twice to actor Richard Burton. Taylor had four children, ten grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. She was 79.

Beyond acting, Taylor is credited with bringing the world's attention to AIDS with her fund-raising and activism. In 1985, when Taylor's lifelong friend Rock Hudson died of AIDS, she brought national attention to the growing disease. It satisfying to her to use her celebrity for good - she raised and donated millions to the cause, founding the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.

Link

Hideaki Akaiwa was at work on March 11th when the earthquake and then the tsunami hit his hometown, Ishinomaki in Japan's Miyagi Prefecture. The city was covered with water ten feet deep -for days. Hideaki's wife was missing somewhere in the flooded area. Rescue workers told Hideaki that all they could do was wait for the military to come help. But the 43-year-old man did not want to sit idly by while his wife was missing, so he put on some SCUBA gear.

Regardless of how he came across this equipment (borrowing, stealing, buying, beating up a Yakuza SCUBA diving demolitions expert, etc.) Hideaki threw on his underwater survival gear, rushed into the goddamned tsunami, and dove beneath the rushing waves, determined to rescue his wife or die trying. I'm not exactly sure whether or not the dude even knew how to operate SCUBA equipment, but according to one version of his story he met his wife while he was surfing (which is awesome, by the way), so it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to say that he already had a little experience SCUBA diving under a more controlled situation. Of course, even if this dude didn't know how to work the gear I'm certain that wouldn't have stopped him either – Hideaki wasn't going to let a pair of soul-crushing natural disasters deter him from doing awesome shit and saving his family. He dove down into the water, completely submerged in the freezing cold, pitch black rushing current on all sides, and started swimming through the underwater ruins of his former hometown.

Surrounded by incredible hazards on all sides, ranging from obscene currents capable of dislodging houses from their moorings, sharp twisted metal that could easily have punctured his oxygen line (at best) or impaled him (at worst), and with giant f***ing cars careening through the water like toys, he pressed on. Past broken glass, past destroyed houses, past downed power lines arcing with electrical current, through undertow that could have dragged him out to sea never to be heard from again, he searched.

Hideaki maintained his composure and navigated his way through the submerged city, finally tracking down his old house. He quickly swam through to find his totally-freaked-out wife, alone and stranded on the upper level of their house, barely keeping her head above water. He grabbed her tight, and presumably sharing his rebreather with her, dragged her out of the wreckage to safety. She survived.

Hideaki wasn't finished, though. His mother was still missing. Read the rest of the story at Badass of the Week. Warning: lots of strong language. Link -via reddit

William Shatner turns 80 years old today. In honor of the occasion, Buzzfeed has posted many pictures of Shatner in various roles, from the original Star Trek (and even earlier roles) to his current starring role in the TV series $#*! My Dad Says. Here you see him at age 26 during rehearsal for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Link

The idea of giant bunny rabbits may remind you of Night of the Lepus, but this is no movie -it's prehistory. A new species called the Minorcan King of the Rabbits (Nuralagus rex) has been discovered on the island of Minorca. It weighed over 26 pounds and had rather small ears compared to rabbits we know today. These rabbits flourished on the Mediterranean island between 5 and 3 million years ago.

"N. rex was a very robust and peculiar rabbit," project leader Josep Quintana told Discovery News. "Surely he was a very calm and peaceful animal that moved with slow, but powerful, movements."

Quintana, a scientist at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology, and colleagues Meike Kohler and Salvador Moya-Sola describe the giant fossil rabbit in a Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology paper. They believe the rabbit lost the ability to hop, because the long, springy spine typical of modern bunnies was replaced by a short, stiff backbone.

The researchers think N. rex spent most of its days peacefully digging, searching for roots and tubers to eat.

Link -via The Daily What

(Image credit: Meike Köhler)

Recent anti-government protests in the Middle East vary immensely regarding how much news gets to international audiences, and we can find it hard to keep up with developments in so many different areas. The successful regime change in Egypt and the violence in Libya tend to crowd out news from other nations. The Guardian has published an interactive time line that will help you catch up with developments in not only Libya, but also Tunisia (where it all started back in December), Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, and other countries experiencing civil unrest. Link -via Metafilter

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Save the date, because there's some travel involved! She's from Mayo, Ireland and he's from London, England, so they're getting married in Cornwall. This video wedding invitation for Victoria and Paul uses the art of collage to make it memorable. Corey McKenna, who created the stop-motion wedding invitation we featured a couple of years ago for his own wedding, was recruited to make this one. The music is "Keep the Car Running" by Arcade Fire. -Thanks, Corey!

These unofficial spring break merit badges can be sent to your friends via Facebook. The Lobster badge is for someone who didn't use enough sunscreen. The one on the right is called Icarus, for your friend who went after someone who was too hot for them and was then shot down. See all ten badges at MyEdu. Link -Thanks, A S!

A farmer in Pitesti, Romania was distraught to find his ostrich had been stolen by rustlers. But he needn't have worried -this ostrich may be part homing pigeon, because she escaped and found her own way home!

Owner Florin Diaconescu, 47, was very relieved to see her return back to the farm and was amazed at how she had managed to return by herself.

'I had given her up as gone forever,' he explained.

'But I saw this cloud of dust heading towards the farm and she came running into the yard as fast as her legs would carry her.'

The bird was reportedly running at about 40 mph when she arrived at the farm. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Reuters)

Peter R. Mason is the "Post Pop Art Man". He creates large images by using recycled postage stamps as pixels! Mason's latest work is a portrait of Prince William and Kate Middleton on the occasion of the upcoming royal wedding. See portraits of world leaders and celebrities, as well as still lifes and landscapes all done in stamps at his website. Link -via the Presurfer

It's once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Can you make up something interesting?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

For another picture showing a close-up detail, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: To be honest, this week it was hard to tell which answers were honest guesses and which were trying to be funny! just a guess was the first with the correct answer: this is a measuring device for a horse's neck, so collars can be custom-sized. The funniest answer prize goes to The Professor, who called it "Occam's Hooky-Thing" that wasn't quite as successful as Occam's Razor.