(YouTube link)

Find a cat just right for covering up that hole in your couch! Scratch and dent models available! They've got girl cats, boy cats, and "used-to-be-boy" cats! The Winnipeg Humane Society adapted hard-sell local advertising techniques to finding homes for cats, with the help of Andy Hill from Kern Hill Furniture Co-op in Winnipeg. The midnight madness event is not real, but the Winnipeg Humane Society is, and will be glad to accommodate you during regular hours. -via Digg

This week, we welcome three, count 'em, three new authors to Neatorama! Phil Haney is currently a writer for Maker Studios' The Station and previously served as Senior Producer for the National Lampoon Creative Department. See his work at YouTube. Matt Sager is a freelance writer as well as a science fiction and comics fan. Visit his website Comics Cavern. J.P. Cole is an editor of a journal on culture and religion. That's all I could get out of him, so he remains a mystery man. These new additions are bound to enhance your Neatorama experience. Meanwhile, let's recap our exclusive articles of the past week.

Sunday, the fitness guru we all know died at age 96. Alex put together a tribute, Jack LaLanne RIP: 10 Facts About Jack LaLanne You Didn't Know.

New author Phil Haney took a look at five of The Best Cults.

Jill Harness found so much going on underground that she wrote a two-part article. Don't miss Underground Animals: Cool Cave Critters, Part One and Part Two.

John Farrier looked up 10 Facts You Might Not Know about Xena: Warrior Princess.

The Fight for Safe Milk: Pasteurization followed up last week's Swill Milk article, courtesy of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

The Annals of Improbable Research brought us a tribute to a master comedian in Four Cheers Five Victor Borge.

From mental_floss magazine, we found out Why Chicago Should be Called Phoenix.

Conceptis Puzzles, our partner site that brings you Neato-Puzzles, invites you to enter their Bottle Magic Sweepstakes any time up until February 10th.

In the Name That Weird Invention! contest, ladybuggs wins a t-shirt for coming up with the name “the Toothsayer”! Also tripleX had the second place winning name with “ayePad”, but didn’t specify a shirt. Honorable mentions to Andrew X for “Den-Tell” and to Trevor for “DenTell Plaque.”

This week's What Is It? game was a little different because we didn't have a definitive answer: no one knows what the item was used for! The folks at the What Is It Blog have a sneaking suspicion it's a case for a Tesla coil, but we decided to select the funniest and most imaginative guesses this week. The most imaginative was from arvana, who wrote a somewhat involved story insinuating that this case could hold the Prometheus Drive which would save the world's energy problems if it hadn't gone into the river (you really should read the whole thing). The funniest was when jjent567 declared the case was "fer me rat stompin' peg leg...".

The winners of the Tokyo Flash Treasure Hunt are Pecca, who won a Tokyo Flash watch, and fabio, JSJ, and ingsoc won prizes from the NeatoShop! The answers are in the address of the hidden answer post, which 150 people found.

Happy Groundhog Day for Wednesday and Happy Chinese New Year for this Thursday. Valentines Day is only a couple of weeks away, so order your unique and clever Valentine gifts from the NeatoShop today!

Give the folks you know a little lift for the things they do with merit badges! The badges shown are for being drunk as a skunk, going out on a limb, having a bun in the oven, and bringing home the bacon. There are plenty more badges available from Etsy seller leemeszaros. Link -via Metafilter

(YouTube link)

Caro the kitten is trying to liberate Miho from an invisible force field. Meanwhile, mama is glad to have a minute of peace and quiet inside the box! -via Arbroath

What if you could train plants for national security? A biologist at Colorado State University working with the Department of Defense is doing just that. Genetic engineering is making plants react to threats they never encountered in nature -for human benefit.

Picture this at an airport, perhaps in as soon as four years: A terrorist rolls through the sliding doors of a terminal with a bomb packed into his luggage (or his underwear). All of a sudden, the leafy, verdant gardenscape ringing the gates goes white as a sheet. That’s the proteins inside the plants telling authorities that they’ve picked up the chemical trace of the guy’s arsenal.

It only took a small engineering nudge to deputize a plant’s natural, evolutionary self-defense mechanisms for threat detection. “Plants can’t run and hide,” says June Medford, the biologist who’s spent the last seven years figuring out how to deputize plants for counterterrorism. “If a bug comes by, it has to respond to it. And it already has the infrastructure to respond.”

That would be the “receptor” proteins in its DNA, which respond naturally to threatening stimuli. If a bug chews on a leaf, for instance, the plant releases a series of chemical signals called terpenoids — “a cavalry call,” Medford says, that thickens the leaf cuticle in defense.

So far, plants have been produced that react to the presence of TNT, but other factors, such as light and movement, interfere with the process. Medford thinks a working plant is still three or four years away. Link -via Fortean Times

(YouTube link)

The right music makes a world of difference. In this remixed movie trailer, the family musical The Sound of Music turns into a zombie Nazi thriller! -via Buzzfeed

Up-and-coming bands often change names because someone else is using the current name, or the record company asks them to, or because someone pointed out a problem. You know these bands by the group name on the recordings. But what did they used to go by? In this Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you'll be given an obscure band name. All you have to do is decide what name they used when they hit the big time. Easy? No. I only knew two answers, but scored 45% by guessing. Link

Have you ever watched a movie end "happily ever after" and later thought, "Hey, what about...?" Lots of major movies hope you will just let those ragged plot lines go, and we do most of the time. Saturday Night Live once made an alternate ending to It's a Wonderful Life because Mr. Potter received no comeuppance in the film. And I've often wondered about The Wizard of Oz, which is featured in this article from Cracked:

If you haven't seen The Wizard of Oz in a long time and are relying on a vague childhood memory of it, you probably don't remember exactly why Dorothy got sucked into a tornado and transported to the magical land of Oz. The whole reason she wound up in that predicament is that her little black terrier, Toto, had bitten an annoying townsperson named Almira Gulch. Gulch then goes out and gets a sheriff's order to have the dog put down.

Isn't it time someone made an alternate ending resolving the fate of Toto? Read about more such movies at Cracked. Link

Scott Lang coached basketball at tiny La Roche College in Pittsburgh for 18 years, 13 of them as head coach. He never married, although he had girlfriends -but relationships couldn't seem to survive basketball season, when Lang was totally dedicated to his team. He had opportunities to move up from Division III to a position in Division I college basketball, but turned them down.

“I’d rather be a big fish in a small pond,” he told his brother Mike. “I can do more here. I can make a bigger impact on people’s lives.”

Lang collapsed at the gym coaching the team on December 10th. He was rushed to a hospital, but died of heart failure. The school held a memorial, the basketball court was named for him, and pages were written in tribute to the coach, but the team says very little about him. Instead, they are following Lang's instructions.

In the six weeks since Lang died La Roche can’t lose, winning all nine of its games, two in overtime. The most recent victory came last Saturday when it beat Hilbert on the afternoon the school held a ceremony to name the court for him. The Redhawks are 16-1 and in first place in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference. This week they received votes in the Division III top 25 poll for the first time ever. It is easily the best season in the program’s history.

Suddenly there is talk about the NCAA’s Division III tournament, about going all the places that Lang spent all those nights and all those hours dreaming of someday being able to take La Roche. Anything seems possible. And it is all very much still him.

The players say they are sure Lang is watching. He wouldn’t miss a year like this. The four men who have taken over the coaching all have other obligations; they have families and full-time jobs. They can’t dedicate half a day let alone an entire life to La Roche. They say the players are winning themselves, that the lessons from Lang were so deep that the team has simply absorbed them.

La Roche won another game since the quoted article was written. Have your hanky ready to read the entire story. Link -via Metafilter

Our little friend from Star Wars is hot! This sculpture is a wood burning heater hand-crafted from steel gas bottles. From what I can tell, UK eBay seller kidsrusje has built other artful stoves. R2D2 is one of a kind, and is for sale to the highest bidder. Link -via the Presurfer

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy Blog points out that today is the 44th anniversary of the Apollo I fire that killed three astronauts: Ed White, Roger Chaffee, and Gus Grissom. I was very young, but recall being shocked and devastated that three of our national heroes died doing what they do. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, and next week is the 8th anniversary of the Columbia disaster. Dr. Plait published a tribute to all those astronauts and others who have died in the pursuit of space exploration. Link

Remember the United States of Shame, where each state was labeled with the statistic it was worst in? Ilya Gerner figured that there should be a statistic that each state is best in, and made a map accordingly. However, I'm not sure how proud I can be that Kentucky is the best armed state. Link to map. Link to explanation. -via Buzzfeed

Sharajat-al-Hayat, or the Tree of Life, is a 400-year-old mesquite tree standing i the desert two kilometers from Jebel Dukhan in Bahrain. Local inhabitants believe it to be the site of the original Garden of Eden. See many pictures of the tree and its surroundings at Triggerpit. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Flickr user Harold Laudeus)

Marijuana smugglers apparently have a problem with the US border fence near Tucson, Arizona -and those pesky border patrols. So they've turned to ancient technology to deliver the goods -a catapult!

On Friday evening, National Guard troops operating a remote video surveillance system at the Naco Border Patrol Station observed several people south of the International Boundary Fence preparing a catapult and launching packages over the International Border fence, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Border Patrol agents working with the National Guard contacted Mexican authorities, who went to the location and disrupted the catapult operation. The camera showed the individuals fleeing the area before they could be intercepted by Mexican authorities.

The Mexican officials seized about 45 pounds of marijuana, a sport utility vehicle, and the catapult device.

http://www.kvoa.com/news/smugglers-catapult-pot-over-border-fence/ (with video) -via Boing Boing

(YouTube link)

This ad is found at the beginning of American versions of DVDs from the BBC. You think it's an anti-piracy warning, but it turns into a friendly ad for the TV network. Of course, the required amount of British humor is included. -via reddit