(YouTube link)

The Tama Zoo and the Ueno Zoo (both in Tokyo) perform annual training drills so that zookeepers know what to do when an animal escapes. Since they cannot use a dangerous beast, workers dress as the escapee, which gives zoo visitors and web surfers an entertaining interlude. The drill this week at the Ueno Zoo featured a Siberian tiger who got out of its pen during an earthquake. -via Pink Tentacle Previously: Rhino and Zebra drills.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts rented a billboard sign for their exhibition "Titian and the Golden Age of Venetian Painting." It featured a portion of the nude painting Venus Rising from the Sea. It didn't stay nude.

Apparently, someone thought it was just a little too nipple-y outside. Even if this is some kind of Midwestern modesty thing, at least the vandal did grant Venus a saucy red strapless deal--hardly sensible blizzard-people attire.

The MIA's PR staff held a little pow-wow with Clear Channel, who offered to take the billboard down immediately. But head of PR Anne-Marie Wagener was tickled.

"Without those words it did look as though someone's trying to censor it," she says. "But with 'Brrrr!' it has that whole sort of funny element. Because it is cold!"

They've decided to leave Venus and her new wardrobe up.

Link (contains art nude) -via reddit

Some monkeys have enough self-awareness to realize when they don't know an answer, and will tell us if we make it worth their time. It appears that uncertainty is not an exclusively human trait.

A team of researchers taught macaques how to maneuver a joystick to indicate whether the pixel density on a screen was sparse or dense. Given a pixel scenario, the monkeys would maneuver a joystick to a letter S (for sparse) or D (for dense). They were given a treat when they selected the correct answer, but when they were wrong, the game paused for a couple seconds. A third possible answer, though, allowed the monkeys to select a question mark, and thereby forgo the pause (and potentially get more treats).

And as John David Smith, a researcher at SUNY Buffalo, and Michael Beran, a researcher at Georgia State University, announced at the AAAS meeting this weekend, the macaques selected the question mark just as humans do when they encounter a mind-stumping question. As Smith told the BBC, “Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error…. They seem to know when they don’t know.”

The same experiment with capuchin monkeys returned different results: they didn't use the question mark button. Link -via J-Walk Blog

Allie Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half has a new post in which she relates her experiences with childhood nightmares. This, of course, affected everyone around her. Link

Big Legal Brain offers a review of the Swingline 747 Business Stapler as it performs the tasks it is actually used for in offices all over the world.

For added functionality, I tried hammering a nail into the wall using the butt end of the Swingline 747. Unlike the Stanley Bostich desktop stapler we tested in the past, the Swingline held up well to the hammering. A rubber non-skid membrane on the bottom, however, took a little bit of damage from the nail. Otherwise, a few swift hits and the nail went in smoothly.

For shooting staples across the room, the Swingline really has limited utility and pales in comparison to more powerful staplers, such as the Stanley Sharpshooter Heavy Duty Staple Gun, which packs some real punch.  To test the Swingline, Amy and Ninja Dog ran across the room quickly while I tried to hit them with staples shot from the stapler. I managed to hit them only 30 percent of the time, far less than the 78 percent accuracy rate we registered with the Stanley staple gun we tested last winter. But if your practice does not involve shooting staples at your colleagues or support staff, the Swingline should work just fine.

http://biglegalbrain.com/2011/02/law-office-product-review-the-swingline-747-business-stapler/ -via Breakfast Links

I enjoyed watching the drinking bird at my grandma's house, but could never have one of my own because I keep cats. The bird never stops, and since there's no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, there must be some reasonable explanation for the bird's persistence.

One can only wonder if the inventor of the dipping bird, Miles V Sullivan broke even from his invention.  The idea began years before the patent and originally, as you might suspect, it had nothing to do with the bird.  Sullivan was an inventor-scientist at Bell Labs but as a young man he enjoyed evenings out.

It wasn’t the music or the lights but the bubbles in the tube at the sides of a juke box that grabbed his attention.  He noticed that the energy wasn’t going anywhere and the inventor determined that something could be done with them.  What he wanted to do was to harness motion- the idea of the bird came along later to make it more entertaining.  Of course, while it is simply for fun it is the science behind it which makes it work.

Oh, you'll get an explanation of how it works, and more, from Kuriositas. Link

Paris Hilton celebrated her 30th birthday with a party last week. Los Angeles musician Paz crashed the party and made off with one of the cakes that wasn't eaten. Many doubted his account, but the baker later confirmed the theft. Hilton never mentioned the theft, but the bakery wanted to know what Paz thought of the cake. Now we have the rest of the story: what happened to the cake.

"I regret that I have but 3 tiers of frosted red velvet to give for my country," spoke the doomed confection.

And with that, he was carved into 125 delicious slices, and served to the homeless of downtown Los Angeles on white paper plates.

Link -via reddit

For those who cannot access Facebook, here are screenshots of the beginning and end of the story.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146 people on March 25th, 1911 when sweatshop workers could not escape the New York City building. The disaster led to safer building codes and worker's rights laws. However, only 140 of the victims were identified, and that list was only completed by 2003. That left six people buried without markers who were mysteries for a hundred years.

Now those six have been identified, largely through the persistence of a researcher, Michael Hirsch, who became obsessed with learning all he could about the victims after he discovered that one of those killed, Lizzie Adler, a 24-year-old greenhorn from Romania, had lived on his block in the East Village.

And so, for the first time, at the centennial commemoration of the fire on March 25 outside the building in Greenwich Village where the Triangle Waist Company occupied the eighth, ninth and 10th floors, the names of all 146 dead will finally be read.

The New York Times has the story of how the last six were finally named. Link -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Yana Paskova/The New York Times)

(YouTube link)

"If my heart was still beating, it would beat for you." Enjoy this "post-apocalyptic postmortem" love song from Your Favorite Martian. -via Geeks Are Sexy

You know about the Roman gods our planets are named for, and their earlier Greek counterparts, but how much do you know about Hawaiian mythology? For example, there's Kamoho, the leader of the shark gods.

Kamoho was the brother of the fire goddess Pele and was considered the guardian god of the Hawaiian Islands. He alone of all Pele’s relatives tried to aid her when she was seeking to avoid her marriage to the boar god Kamapua’a. Kamoho also ruled over the shark-men, or “were-sharks” as I call them. These beings were greedy humans cursed by Kamoho to periodically transform into sharks. They could be recognized by the large shark tattoos that Kamoho branded onto their backs.

Read about the other ten at Balladeer's Blog. Link -Thanks, Ed!

It's time once again for the Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! What goes in this empty speech bubble? Tell us and you might win any T-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and tell us what shirt you’d like with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Have fun and good luck!

Update: The winning entry is from Alan: "Be careful; someone started a flame war between mac and pc users and it's a long way down." However, Alan did not select a t-shirt. Be watching for the next contest from Mal and his buddy Chad!

It's time for the Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! What is he saying in this empty speech bubble? Tell us and you might win any T-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and tell us what shirt you’d like with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Have fun and good luck!

Update: This week's winner is Todd McCoy, who gave us, "WHO LET THE DOG DRUM?! Who..who..who..who!" Todd wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop!

It's time once again for the Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! Tell us what goes in the empty speech bubble and you might win any T-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and tell us what shirt you’d like with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Good luck!

Update: amanderpanderer's line was selected to go in the speech bubble: "We always did make quite the paramecium." She'll be getting a t-shirt from the NeatoShop!

It's time now for the Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! What's he saying in the empty speech bubble? Tell us and you might win any T-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and tell us what shirt you’d like with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Have fun and good luck!

Update: Congratulations to winner Scott-O, who gave us "Who would have thought picking a nose on Mt. Rushmore could be so rewarding?" He wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop!

Sillof, the artist who brought us Steampunk Superheroes, World War II Star Wars, and Samurai Wars, has a new collection of sculptures that sets the personalities from Star Wars into a western story! Read a description of each character and how they came about at his website. Only the "good guys" are pictured here. Link