Retired USAF Major General Chuck Yeager is 86 years old today. From Wikipedia:

Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 13,700 m (45,000 ft). Although Scott Crossfield was the first man to fly faster than Mach 2 in 1953, Yeager shortly thereafter exceeded Mach 2.4.[1] He later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany and in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and in recognition of the outstanding performance ratings of those units he then was promoted to brigadier general. Yeager's flying career spans more than sixty years and has taken him to every corner of the globe, even into the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

Learn more about Yeager at his official website. http://www.chuckyeager.com/yeageradventure/yeageradventure.htm -via the Presurfer

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A brave little voodoo finds a way to save the day in this award-winning short from Joaquin Baldwin. See more of the winners of Aniboom's annual competition. Link -via I Am Bored

Flickr user hey mr glen found this awesome storefront that advertises what's inside. Bonus: the dials go to eleven! Link -via reddit

HealthAssist is beginning a series on fast food around the world, beginning with Europe. In Denmark, sausages resembling long hot dogs called røde pølser are dipped in ketchup, and bread is a side dish. In the Netherlands, french fries are most commonly dressed in mayonnaise. Of course, in Belgium you can buy waffles from a fast food stand. In Poland, enjoy Zapiekanki which resembles a pizza sandwich. In most of Europe, fast food means sausage. Link -Thanks, Karen!

A group of researchers are studying the biological basis of romantic love. No matter how much we talk about love from the heart (or other organs), they've found it really is all in your head.

In humans, there are four tiny areas of the brain that some researchers say form a circuit of love. [Dr. Bianca] Acevedo, who works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is part of a team that has isolated those regions with the unromantic names of ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus.

The hot spot is the teardrop-shaped VTA. When people newly in love were put in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine and shown pictures of their beloved, the VTA lit up. Same for people still madly in love after 20 years.

The VTA is part of a key reward system in the brain.

"These are cells that make dopamine and send it to different brain regions," said Helen Fisher, a researcher and professor at Rutgers University. "This part of the system becomes activated because you're trying to win life's greatest prize - a mating partner."

Link -via Geek Like Me

(image credit: Larry Young, PhD.)

The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women is a Facebook group formed to protest the actions of an Indian group called Sri Ram Sena (Army of Lord Ram). Members of the group were arrested for attacking women in a bar in Mangalore last month. The attack was caught on video.

Pramod Mutalik, who heads the little known Ram Sena and is now on bail after he was held following the attack, has said it is "not acceptable" for women to go to bars in India.

He has also said his men will protest against Valentine's Day on Saturday.

The Facebook group urges its over 28,000 members to send pink chaddis (underpants) to Mutalik's office on Valentines Day in protest. Link to story. Link to website. -via Arbroath

The name of this geeky retro work of art is Big Blue.

Lego PC that SCREAMS 80s LEGO with what I think are the most recognized LEGO sets of the 80s representing Space, Castle, Town, with Touch Screen LCD, RF Remote, Blue NEON light, Spectrum Analyzer display, HDTV Tuner card coming soon. I call it BIG BLUE.

See lots more pictures at Brickshelf. http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=174449 -via Gizmodo

Upload a picture, and see yourself turned into an much earlier version of human! From left to right, this is me as an Australopithecus afarensis, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo heidelbergensis. Oh, and as Homo sapiens, too. Link -via J-Walk Blog

ThunderCats was a cartoon series that debuted in 1985. How well do you remember them? Jason at mental_floss photographed his old action figures for Today's Lunchtime Quiz. Can you name the ThunderCat represented by each action figure? http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22559

Mathias learns about women, in this beautiful 2006 short film by Rasmus Heise. Contains some brief nudity. http://rasmusheise.dk/LM/ -Thanks, PAgent!

Koalas in the wild will normally have nothing to do with humans. The devastating fires in Australia are an extraordinary situation, which drove a little female koala named Sam to seek help from a firefighter. A picture taken of the event has made Sam an international star. Firefighter David Tree tells the story.

"I could see she had sore feet and was in trouble, so I pulled over the fire truck. She just plonked herself down, as if to say 'I'm beat'," he said.

"I offered her a drink and she drank three bottles.

"The most amazing part was when she grabbed my hand. I will never forget that."

Sam now lives at the Mountain Ash Wildlife Shelter, where she was treated for burned paws. She is expected to recover and could be released back into the wild in about five months. Link -Thanks, Larfin Jackarse!

(image credit: Mark Pardew)

A remote control for your cat? Good luck with that! Notice the fine print says "No batteries required. Powered by positive thinking." Only $6.99 when they get more in at Think Geek. Link -via the Presurfer

Stephanie Carpluk of Easthampton, Massachusetts was at work at the Golden Nozzle car wash Sunday when her scarf became entangled in the spinning machinery. She lost consciousness as the scarf tightened around her neck. John O'Leary, whose car was moving through the wash, jumped out and cut the scarf with his pocket knife.

The next thing Carpluk remembers is waking up in the arms of a stranger who was encouraging her to breathe.

"I started hearing little things like, 'You're breathing. You're going to be alright. You're back. Just stay with me, stay with me,'" Carpluk said.

After cutting Carpluk free from the scarf, O'Leary administered CPR until she began breathing again.

Carpluk is recovering from severe bruising. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: WBZ)

Jacob Vanderlaan of Sussex, New Brunswick loved tractors. After he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the 9-year-old made his request to the Children's Wish Foundation. He wanted to visit the John Deere factory in Moline, Illinois.

But the boy everyone knows as 'Jake' is too ill to travel, so the tractors came to him Friday as the extended family that is the farming community around Sussex organized a parade past the boy's home as he lay on a folded-down seat at the living room window.

Wrapped in a fleece, farm-themed blanket, a stuffed cow on his lap, Jake shielded his eyes from the sun with a black cap in one hand, waving excitedly with the other at the familiar faces behind the wheels of the passing farm vehicles.

For one afternoon, the family was able to forget the cancer that mom Julie Vanderlaan described as "extremely aggressive", which has left her son heavily medicated to fight through the pain.

Over 50 farmers rode tractors and other farm equipment to Jake's home -they were the same farmers who had been helping the family in every way possible since Jacob's illness was diagnosed.

"I never expected this," Julie said. "People are offering to do anything they can, they are just showing up every day to help. It all means so much.

"It's overwhelming. It just makes you so appreciative to be a part of this type of community."

Jacob died the day after the tractor parade. Link -via Fark

(image credit: Cindy Wilson/Telegraph-Journal)

Michel Cuhaci received a flawed copy of the book A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equation, so he left a one-star review on Amazon. The author, Dan Fleisch responded and promised to send a replacement overnight. At the time, Fleisch did not realize how hard that would be on Christmas Eve!

"I called (parcel services), and getting it delivered was out of the question," he said. "Then I thought, 'OK, maybe I can find a bookstore that had it in stock.' "

No luck — most bookstores had closed early.

"It got to be late afternoon. I couldn't find anyway to get it to him."

His next thought — he'd drive to Canada and deliver the $26 book himself.

"I looked at my iPhone and there was this massive blob (snowstorm) over the whole Northeast," he said.

Fleisch ended up flying from Ohio to Ottawa to deliver the book on Christmas Day, ending up back home after midnight. His journey reads like a comedy of errors.

Last week Cuhaci went back to Amazon and added a new comment about the book and its author.

"But I did not change the rating," he said. "I want people to look at my comment and see what a dedicated author he is."

http://www.daytondailynews.com/search/content/oh/story/news/local/2009/02/08/sns020809bookinside.html to story. http://www.amazon.com/review/R1OJWAR9L38UTF/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0521701473&nodeID to Amazon review. -via reddit