A couple of weeks ago, we posted a story about a crocodile attacking a baby elephant. That news article said that crocodiles don't normally attack elephants. Maybe something has changed, because it's happened again -this time in Zambia's South Luangwa National Park. Swiss tourist Martin Nyfeler caught several photographs of the encounter between a mother elephant with her baby and a Nile crocodile. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

Remember the Nickelodeon game show Double Dare? Sure, you watched it for the slime, but if you remember more than that, you may do well on today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I scored 20%, because I am clueless, but the average score right now is 65%. Link

Minnesotastan found this 1944 photograph titled "Alter Silvester in Urnäsch" at FOTOGRAFÍA and did some investigating. Silvester means New Years Eve, so the child is not asking for treats on Halloween, as one might assume.  Commenters helped fill in the blanks.

To specify further: technically the boy's not carrying a cow bell but a trychel (Treichel in German, Treichle in Swiss German). Wikipedia puts the difference thus: "As opposed to regular cast metal bells, trychlen are made of hammered sheet metal. This results in a less clean, clanking sound, but at the same time results in a bell that is less heavy and thus easier to carry".

What are little kids doing wearing masks and carrying cow bells on New Years Eve? Find out at TYWKIWDBI. Link

(Image credit: Hans Peter Klauser)

Neatorama author Johnny Cat stopped blogging for a while because he is busy training to become a wind turbine specialist. He recently started posting updates at his blog The Litter Box, where we find that he is going to climb his first tower today, a 75-foot training tower at Northwest renewable Energy Institute. See a video report on the tower at the link. Good luck, Johnny Cat! Link

The author of The Shadow Scholar makes a living writing custom papers for college students, from admissions essays to graduate theses. He makes more money than most of the professors who assign the work.

You've never heard of me, but there's a good chance that you've read some of my work. I'm a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can't detect, that you can't defend against, that you may not even know exists.

I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I've worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments.

In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company's staff of roughly 50 writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.

It's not plagiarism, as each paper is paid for and written to specifications with the understanding that the author will receive no writing credit. But the student does none of the work to produce the paper. There's a serious discussion at Metafilter on whether this activity is wrong or not. I was surprised that there was any question as to the ethics of hiring someone to do your college work, but I graduated over 30 years ago, and the world has changed a lot since then. What you do think? Is this cheating or just another path to your goal? Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jonathan Barkat for The Chronicle Review)

When you need a little pick-me-up, there's nothing like pictures of pandas! This collection shows the joy of juveniles playing in the snow. Link -via Rue the Day

The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into the Universe.

Let's get really, really, really small...

In the fourth century B.C. a Greek named Democritus (known as the "laughing philosopher" because he was always making fun of people) proposed a theory of matter that remained uncontested well into the 19th century. (This was before he went mad and blinded himself with hot glass in an effort to heighten his intellectual acuity.)

Anyway, Democritus suggested that all matter is made up of tiny indestructible pieces that he named atomos, meaning undivided. Today it's known that atoms can certainly be broken up into subatomic particles, and those particles can be broken into more particles, and so on. (Image credit: Flickr user edgeplot)

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE

For about 2,200 years, scientists were happy enough with the idea that matter was made up of atoms. This all changed in 1886 when E. Goldstein discovered the positively charged particle that he named "proton", after the Greek root proto, meaning "first", since it was the first subatomic particle ever to be discovered.

Shortly after that, in 1897, the English physicist J.J. Thomson (who also only used his initials -is it some sort of club?) discovered negatively charged particles that he called "corpuscles," which today are known as electrons.

In 1932, English scientist Sir James Chadwick (finally, a man with a real name!) discovered the neutron, the subatomic particle that lacks a charge.

THREE QUARKS FOR MUSTER MARK!

Of course, scientists were not content to stop at having three subatomic particles -they're funny that way- so they feverishly looked for more. And sure enough, by splitting a proton or a neutron, smaller subatomic particle were created. These particle were named "quarks" in 1964 by scientist Murray Gell-Mann, who got the name from the following quote in James Joyce's novel Finnegan's Wake: "Three quarks for Muster Mark! Sure he hasn't got much of a bark/And sure any he has it's all beside the mark."

Steven M. Johnson comes up with all sorts of wacky inventions in his weekly Museum of Possibilities posts, but something's missing from his strange gadgets: names. Can you come up with a name for this one? The commenter suggesting the funniest and wittiest name will win a free T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Update: We couldn't decide between two great entries, so a first place tie was declared. Mike Struthers suggested Parkaderm, and scarab suggested Pachytherms. Both are awesome!

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What will a flock of penguins do when a fake penguin comes around? The Japanese TV show Shimura Zoo finds out. Link -via Everlasting Blort

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Cat owns alligator. Then the alligator returns with reinforcements. No gator is a match for this kitty! -via The Daily What

Instructables member Shawn Melito designed and built a special "water scooter" for his then-5-year-old daughter, who has Cerebral Palsy. This gave her buoyancy, mobility, and independence on the water -under supervision, of course. He explains how he he built at at the link. Then comes the kicker:

BTW - After two seasons of use my daughter has grown out of this, but it still works great. It is free to the first person who has a disabled child the right size that can use it safely. We live near Toronto, Ontario.

Link -via NeatoBambino

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Busting stereotypes wherever they go! Meet the Science Cheerleaders, former NBA and NFL cheerleaders who went on to careers in science and engineering -but still enjoy kicking up their heels! Link -via The Daily What

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We know Maru has a thing for boxes. Is there any box too small to capture his interest? Let's find out. -via Buzzfeed

Andrew Shears created this US Map with a TV show to go with each state. It's good to see that TV sometimes happens outside of New York and California! Shears also explains why he choose each show. You can enlarge the picture at Thinking Pseudogeographically. Link -via The Daily What

For the third year in a row, the Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, Canada is putting together 600 pounds of gingerbread, 1,000 pounds of icing, 2,000 chocolate wafers, 750 cookies, and 4,900 pretzels to make a gingerbread house you can stand up in! It will take about two weeks to complete, and then patrons will be invited to dine inside -but you'll have to make reservations in advance, as it will have only one table. The $20 reservation charge will go to help abused children through a local charity. Manager Keith Simmonds says the structure is extremely popular -and yes, people do occasionally snag a bite of it.

He said it happens about every five minutes.

"We do a lot of repairs on the fly and overnight. We try to keep people off as much as we can, but it's part of the fun. I mean, it is a totally edible structure."

Once the house is finished in early December, it will accept reservations for one table of six. Families will be able to order off the same menus offered in other restaurants inside the lodge, including breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets. And of course, there's a dessert menu -- separate from what's seen on the surrounding walls.

The gingerbread house will remain up until January. Link