Of all the trolls, the worst is the Choles-troll. He is the central character of this illustrated "bedtime story for adults" at The Museum Of Modern Fiction. Link -Thanks, josef lee!

New York City artist Camomile Hixon added some interest to the many missing pet posters she saw by hanging one requesting help with a missing unicorn. Actually, friends helped her post 2,000 of the missing unicorn posters.

“I was travelling back and forth in the subways, and I just noticed the dejection. I’m a pop artist, and I thought –- if I could just make one person smile. I was thinking about ways to do that," she said.

“A unicorn is beyond race, beyond religion. I wanted something that could reach anyone at any age. I thought, if I could just make a handful of businessmen on Wall Street think about unicorns, I will be successful.”

Hixon received 350 phone calls in the first day. She went on to install a hotline and a website for people to report their unicorn sightings. Link to story. Link to website. -via Fortean Times

English Russia has pictures of the offices at the Russian LEGO headquarters. Look who greets you upon entering! They have whimsical LEGO creations in almost every room. I think my favorite may be the monkey. Link -Thanks, fraulein m!

Brian Boyko admired the one-man four-part harmonies of YouTube member trudbol and the four-part one-woman harmonies of gwenatav. They both performed the song "Baby on Board" from the TV show The Simpsons. So in true geeky fashion, he mashed up the two versions of the song and created an eight-part duet.

As it turned out, it wasn’t quite so easy. There were slight differences in timing and tempo which meant I had to alter Gwenatav’s part slightly, cutting out moments of silence so the two would sync up. Since choppy video would be unacceptable, I had to do my best to match up what I could – compounded by the fact that Gwen’s video was recorded in 25fps and Julien’s at 30fps. That said, I’m happy with the results...

Which you can hear at Geeks Are Sexy. Link

In this interactive puzzle from The New York Times, you are presented with the US budget deficits for 2015 and 2030. You are also given a lot of ideas for cutting the budget or raising funds, from which you can pick and choose ways to fix the deficits. Make your choices and watch the savings add up -but remember that someone somewhere pays for every idea. You might not solve the country's financial problems, but you'll learn a lot about where the money goes. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(YouTube link)

David Balboa put together a supercut of movie introductions, 250 in all. No, not the introduction to the movie, but people pointing out who is who and what is what. This becomes hypnotizing as you watch it! How many do you recognize? A complete list is available at Exophrine. Link -via The Litter Box

Oh no! The family will be here anytime and you forgot to cook the turkey! What to do? I don't think the Butterball hotline has the solution you're looking for. What heats up faster than a microwave? Thermite! No, we don't advocate trying this, but you can watch the magic of thermite cook a turkey in under thirty seconds in this video. And yes, they eat it. Link

Skyscrapers are a huge investment to build, are placed on pricey urban real estate, and contain lots of rental space, so you might be surprised that any are completely unused. Some are victims of poor planning; others are abandoned when the area suffers financial decline. Some of the older towers are unsafe due to age or toxic materials. The building shown here is Michigan Central Station in Detroit, built in 1913. See twelve such empty buildings at Web Urbanist. Link -via Rue the Day

(YouTube link)

The world's greatest dad (Steve Moseley) installed a marble run all around his son's bedroom. See how he did it at Instructables. Link -via NeatoBambino

CakeWrecks is celebrating the release of the new Harry Potter movie with two posts: one is a collection of terrible Harry Potter cakes, the other a celebration of awesome Harry Potter cakes. If you've never seen a Harry Potter cake at all, you're in for a treat! Link to the wrecks. Link to the best.

Etsy seller merrypranxster sells handmade wrapping paper in lovely Doctor Who designs like these daleks or a floating TARDIS. But that's not all! You'll find gift wrap featuring the Vulcan salute, the Rebel Alliance symbol, and Cthulhu in her shop too, for an extra-geeky Christmas. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

Pride of the Valley Sculpture Park is an outdoor gallery just outside the small village of Churt, Surrey, England. There are around 150 sculptures at any time, and many are for sale. See lots more pictures at Kuriositas. Be warned, some sculptures are nudes. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Mike Lawrence)

You know what these symbols mean, but do you know where they came from? The peace symbol, the dollar sign, the medical snakes, the smiley face, and others are in the spotlight, so to speak, at Dark Roasted Blend. Link

Helpful Figures by Karl Pichotta has plenty of those every-popular infographics you see all around the blogosphere -but these are entertaining! Shown is a small portion of the infographic about food. Look through the archives to find an infographic on a subject that suits your interest. All have interesting "facts", possibly related artwork, and unclickable sources printed at the bottom, just like all those other infographics. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Flickr user Karen Mae Farro)

Evidence of Convergence in Hominid Evolution

by Edward C. Theriot, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Arthur E. Bogan, Freshwater Molluscan Research, Sewell, New Jersey Earle E. Spamer, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

[This is an abbreviated version of the original article. The full text appears in AIR 1:1, January/February 1995, and in the book Best of Annals of Improbable Research.]

[School groups can hear and see a presentation based on this lecture. To arrange one, please telephone Edward Theriot or Earle Sapamer at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The number is 215-299-1000.]

According to National Geographic, hominids evolved first on the African continent, radiating to occupy the other continents during the past tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Current opinions put forth by anthropologists indicate that several genera and species evolved, of which only Homo exists today. The only evidence on which these suppositions are based are skeletal remains, preserved mostly as fragments. Cladistic studies of the characteristics of the bone fragments have led scientists to derive the evolutionary relationships between these different hominid animals.

However, from field evidence and empirical observations, we have discovered a previously unrecognized form of hominid, alive today, which is presumably globally distributed. It is certainly found in North America, where we first observed it. Its external morphology is completely unlike hominid morphology, for which reason it has been until now overlooked. Its discovery has immediate and far-reaching implications on understanding hominid evolution.