A fire broke out in Becky Smith's home when a heat lamp turned over on her tortoise cage, setting the wood chip litter ablaze. The bedrooms were engulfed, and two tortoises died. A third tortoise named Shelli was thought to be dead as well, as his cage was melted.

He was so hot he 'phfizzed' when firefighters put him in water – and then poked his head out.

'The firemen said he was steaming when they put him in the bucket of water and he was so hot they couldn't pick him up,' said Ms Smith, 27.

'It's a miracle he is OK – especially when you see the state of the cage.'

Vets kept him in overnight and Shelli is now nibbling cucumber again.

Link -via Arbroath

The video of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz and their attendants dancing down the aisle at their wedding has over 13 million views on YouTube. Neither Chris Brown, whose song "Forever" served as the processional music, nor Sony Music demanded a takedown of the video. Rather, they requested click-to-buy links to Amazon and iTunes from YouTube, and sales of the year-old song skyrocketed. But what about Jill and Kevin? They appeared on morning TV to talk about the video, but haven't made any money. Instead, they are using their sudden fame to raise funds for charity. From their website:

We have been through a lot in life, but have come through each experience stronger and more in love with each other. Our experience since we posted the video has been incredible. We would never have expected this response to our wedding entrance in a million years. We hope to direct this positivity to a good cause. Due to the circumstances surrounding the song in our wedding video, we have chosen the Sheila Wellstone Institute. Sheila Wellstone was an advocate, organizer, and national champion in the effort to end domestic violence in our communities.

There is a donation button on the site. Link

Microwave dinners usually don't look like the picture on the front of the package. In this quiz, you'll be given a picture of what the food actually looks like. Can you tell which box the pictured food came out of? In the second part of the quiz, you select which meal is homemade and which is a microwave meal, which just proves that real food doesn't photograph all that well, either. I scored only seven out of 15. Be warned, this is British food. http://www.e4.com/game/readymeals/index.html -via b3ta

(Vimeo link)
Bobby McFerrin involves the audience in a music lesson during the 2009 World Science Festival. The seminar was called "Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus." I love how he knew exactly the way the crowd would follow along. -via Metafilter

I don't know where this photograph originated, but I love it! How can you beat the implied story of Spiderman holding back a van full of kids to protect a flock of ducklings? Link to full size version. -via Buzzfeed

Update: This award-winning photograph was shot by Deviant Art member Samlim. (Thanks, inebriator!)

The first Saturday in August is National Mustard Day, sponsored and promoted by the National Mustard Museum. The celebration tomorrow will be in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, but afterwards the museum will move to its new home in Middleton, 18 miles away.

For the final time, people will gather here Saturday on two closed-off blocks of Main Street to celebrate National Mustard Day. There will be free hotdogs with mustard — there's a $10 surcharge for those who dare to request ketchup — mustard painting and music by the Poupon U Accordion Band.

The Mustard Museum draws up to 30,000 visitors a year. Link to story. Link to Mustard Day website. -via J-Walk Blog

Are you familiar with the International System of Typographic Picture Education? It's what we call pictograms. The system featuring a round-headed man was invented by Austrian philosopher Otto Neurath and German artist Gernd Arntz, who called them "Isotypes" for short. The round-headed man became popularly known as "Helvetica Man". By 1974, there were so many variant signs that the US Transportation Department looked at them all and came up with a single cohesive system for their use. Read more in this explanation of the history and usage of pictograms, particularly in the US National Park System. http://thesmartset.com/article/article07140901.aspx?parm1=value -via Metafilter

You might read about how much money a certain movie makes and gasp at the numbers. But can you name the highest-grossing movies of all time if the ticket prices are adjusted for inflation? In this mental_floss quiz, you have five minutes to name the top 15 -if you can! I only guessed ten of them. Link

If you thought Jill and Kevin's wedding entrance was exceptional, you should see what they did for the divorce! Link (embedded YouTube video)

An elderly resident of Cootamundra, New South Wales, Australia died and left behind around 1500 cement garden gnomes. Not knowing what to do with them, the executor of the will contacted the Australian Gnome Convention for advice on disposing of them.

Convention organiser and "Gnome Master'' David Cook said he did not hesitate in organising the rescue party when contacted about the homeless little folk.

"We didn't want to see them put in a skip and taken to the tip and all smashed up,'' Mr Cook said.

I believe that means they didn't want to see the gnomes thrown away. A four-member team traveled 800 kilometers to pack up the gnomes of all sizes.They will be painted and refurbished, and will appear at the 2010 Australian Gnome Convention on January 26th. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Australian Gnome Convention)

It took three months of planning, a crane, and nine gardeners to transfer a palm tree called a cycad to a new pot. The operation at Kew Gardens in London was difficult and delicate because the tree is considered to be the oldest potted plant in the world.

The ancient cycad was collected in the early 1770s from the Eastern Cape in South Africa by Kew's first plant hunter, Frances Masson.

It was one of 500 species gathered for the botanical gardens during Captain Cook's second voyage around the globe.

For the last 160 years, the tree has been housed in Kew's Palm House, where its nobbly trunk has grown outwards and upwards at an inch a year.

It now stretches to 14ft 5 inches and because it is growing at an angle, is propped up by stilts.

The repotting procedure was successful. Link -via Unique Daily

(imafe credit: Jenny Goodall)

The standard theories of why Neandertals disappeared 28,000 years ago don't hold up, so scientists are looking in new directions. The assimilation/interbreeding theory should've yielded some DNA evidence, but there is none. The replacement/war theory isn't as cut and dried as it could be, since modern humans lived in the same territories as Neandertals for 15,000 years. Climate change? Sure, the earth was cooling at the time, but Neandertals had lived through ice ages before.

But the isotope data reveal that far from progressing steadily from mild to frigid, the climate became increasingly unstable heading into the last glacial maximum, swinging severely and abruptly. With that flux came profound ecological change: forests gave way to treeless grassland; reindeer replaced certain kinds of rhinoceroses. So rapid were these oscillations that over the course of an individual’s lifetime, all the plants and animals that a person had grown up with could vanish and be replaced with unfamiliar flora and fauna. And then, just as quickly, the environment could change back again.

Scientists are looking into the idea that Neandertals just weren't as adaptable as modern humans, and over time lost out in the competition for resources in a changing world. Link -via Metafilter

Crows can recognize individual people, but can you recognize a particular crow in a photo lineup? I couldn't! Even people who raise crows as pets have a hard time telling crows apart. NPR presents the quiz and an accompanying video about crow research. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111040421 -via the Presurfer

(YouTube link)
What if the movie Ghost Busters was made a few decades earlier? YouTube member whoiseyevan used 17 sources to create a trailer for a 1954 version, starring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, and Fred MacMurray. Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! -via YesButNoBuutYes

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has figured out how to recreate the "Crunchy Frog" confection made famous in the classic Monty Python sketch ("If we took the bones out it wouldn't be crunchy would it?") using Gummi frogs, Pop Rocks, and chocolate.

There are two remarkable things about this recipe. First, Pop Rocks survive being immersed in melted chocolate surprisingly well-- they still pop after the chocolate solidifies. Second, the artificial fruit flavor of the Pop Rocks is completely overwhelmed and masked by the bittersweet chocolate. We anticipated a bit of flavor conflict, but the chocolate won out completely, leaving only the pop-whiz-bang of the Pop Rocks.

Link