Jo Stephens of Cornwall had planned a home birth, but when her labor pains started, no midwife could come. And the ambulance wasn't going to make it in time, either. Luckily, her husband Marc had been watching YouTube videos just hours before on how to deliver a baby.

A few hours earlier, Mr Stephens has been reading up on home births and how to cope with anything unexpected.

"The videos gave me peace of mind. I think I would have coped, but watching videos made things much easier."

The Stephens delivered a 5 pound, 5 ounce boy they named Gabriel. Both mother and child were later taken to a hospital where they were pronounced healthy. Link -via Gizmodo

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In this ad, 13,500 people sing Hey Jude together in Trafalgar Square in London on April 30th. Participants talk about the experience in a related video. -via Viral Video Chart

Previously at Neatorama: The T-Mobile Dance

Wolverine has his retractable claws, but real-life technology is catching up with comic book super heroes. Dvice lists eight awesome things you can implant into your body. If someone could have all of these, they would rival any pop culture super hero! Shown is a prosthetic speech implant, which can turn your thoughts into audible communication.

In the future: Turn a prosthetic speech implant up to 11 and you've got yourself a sonic scream, à la Banshee. Make it waterproof and you're just as "super powered" as Aquaman Sammy "Squidboy" Paré. Special throat mics already allow for sub-vocal communication, but implants would take that a step further, perhaps facilitating the ability to speak where we normally wouldn't be able to.

Link -via Digg

I love this! The Wilkerson M21 Flat-Panel TV is a modern flat screen TV set with the look of a mid-20th century console. It's just one of 16 unusual TV designs featured at Now That's Nifty. Link -via the Presurfer

If you're over 18, can get to the Miami area, and have $25, you can race your car against police officers driving cruisers -legally! Officers from several local departments race at County Line Drag Way once a month in an event called Beat the Heat.

"You could bring your mother's minivan. You can bring a pure racing car. It doesn't matter," said Officer Jose Ayala with the Medley Police Department.

"We're actually getting a lot of kids and adults alike come here and say, 'We used to race in Davie. You probably used to chase us around, and now we're here on the track and we want to race your car,'" said Officer Ron Bradley with the Davie Police.

Officers said they have seen a drastic reduction in illegal street racing since Beat the Heat started in 2007.

The next Beat the Heat race is May 23rd. Link -via reddit

Andy Mackie of Washington state had undergone nine heart operations and was taking 15 different drugs when he decided to quit. He gave up the medicine and started using the money he saved to give away harmonicas and music lessons to local kids. Mackie figured it would be a gift before he died.

"I really thought it was the last thing I could ever do," he says.

And when he didn't die the next month, he bought a few hundred more.

Harmonicas in hand, he explains, "I just started going from school to school."

It's now 11 years and 13,000 harmonicas later.

The now 70-year-old Mackie also makes and buys other musical instruments for interested children, and arranges for his older students to give lessons to younger kids.

Mackie says, "I tell them music is a gift, you give it away - you give it away and you get to keep it forever."

Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: CBS)

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Is this weird or what? This optical illusion known as Ames' Window was developed by Adelbert Ames, Jr. {wiki} Just watching it made me dizzy! -via reddit

Andre chewed off his front left and rear left paws to escape an illegal trap he encountered in Alaska. He then lived for weeks hiding under a camper shell. The Shepherd-Rottweiler-Lab mix was taken in by Alaskan Dog and Puppy Rescue, who contacted a company named OrthoPets to see if they could help. A year later, Andre has received his prosthetic legs in Denver, Colorado. Martin Kaufmann of OrthoPets says Andre stood up just two days after his new legs were attached.

"This is the first time that Andre has been able to stand on four legs in over a year and a few months now, so it will be an interesting challenge as he learns, instead of having to survive with two legs how he can actually thrive on all four," said Kaufmann.

For a second he hesitated, and then Andre hopped up and started running around like any dog with four legs would.

"It's just such an amazing moment to see this guy who's learned how to be very adaptive on two legs and watch how fast he's able to go back to four legs. Just feels good to see he's able to be normal again, such a proud moment," Kaufmann said.

Andre will go up for adoption in a few weeks. Link -via Arbroath

Montanara is the name given to this amazing sofa upholstered with mountains and waterfalls designed by Gaetano Pesce. Link -via Gearfuse

Engineers at the University of California at Berkeley have developed remote-control beetles that can be used as spies! They aren't just robots, either. These are cyborgs, real beetles that have implanted electrodes that control their flight muscles.

With the mind of a machine and the nimble body of an insect, this bug-bot may be the perfect scout: inexpensive, expendable, and capable of surreptitious reconnaissance. The Berkeley researchers, led by Michael Maharbiz, note that beetles are strong enough to carry useful payloads, such as a miniature camera.

Link -via Digg

(image credit: Hirotaka Sato and Michel M. Maharbiz, U. C. Berkeley)

91 members with four LED lights each, this chandelier was designed by Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn. It's very energy-efficient for the amount of light it provides. Link -via Swiss Miss

Hospital Food is a photo blog to which people submit photographs of hospital meals. The places they come from aren't always identified, but from the looks of things, you want to be hospitalized in France to get a really decent meal. The Asian meals look pretty good, too. Others aren't so appetizing. The meal pictured was served in a Polish hospital. Link -via Buzzfeed

English explorer Henry Hudson set foot on an island called Mannahatta 400 years ago. The Manhatta Project has recreated the island as it appeared in 1609, with forests, wetlands, and a vast array of wildlife. See views of Manhattan side-by-side with a computer recreation of what it looked like before it became a city. Link -via mental_floss

(Image credit: Markley Boyer, Mannahatta Project/Wildlife Conservation Society)

You've heard of X-men, but do you remember Doom Patrol?

Unlike the X-Men, the Doom Patrollers were once normal people who suffered an accident that disfigured them but also gave them superpowers. Shunned by the world for just being plain ugly, the freaks were gathered by Doctor Caulder, a paraplegic, who thought that maybe the world wouldn't dislike them so much if they used their powers to save the normal people's asses from giant robots once in a while.

If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, it's because the same thing as X-Men with the only difference that the smart guy in the wheelchair was bald in one and X-Men uses mutants as an allegory for minorities instead of people with elephantiasis or whatever the heck Doom Patrol was going for.

Cracked looks at six famous characters and their lesser-known precursors. I knew about The Lion King, but I was unfamiliar with the rest. Oh, I knew the last one, too, but I didn't know how much they had in common. Link

What do they call that weird cap with the ragged spikes and various decorations attached? You've seen it in old movies, TV shows, and advertisements. It's been called by many names: a fedora beanie, jagged beanies, Whoopee cap, palookaville caps, devils caps, clubhouse hats, and Kingpins. I'm Learning to Share takes a look at how the style developed in the early part of the 20th century. Link -via Metafilter