This Japanese site takes a long time to load the first time you do it, but I opened another tab and did other things while waiting. When it is ready, enter a Twitter ID or keyword and watch the parade! You (or the owner of the ID you entered) will lead, followed by your followers marching along to some really infectious music. Link -via Gorilla Mask

The week-long Quiz Play Day promotion is half over, and Neatorama is currently in first place! That may change, however, as more people play. If you haven't tried Bazinga! there's still time to play and help Neatorama win the friendly competition between blogs. Go to this link and play a game of Bazinga!, make a donation to to your favorite charity, and then send in an email with your score and donation details. Remember, you don't have to score highly or make a bigger donation than the next person to win fabulous prizes -you just have to play! Get all the details in the game post.

Prizes:
An Apple iPad from Neatorama for a randomly-drawn player.
Ten Wii games from the Game Show Network for randomly-drawn players.
A shopping spree from Breadppig/xkcd for a player coming from the winning blog.
Bragging rights for the blog that raises the most money for charity!

Here are Wenlock and Mandeville, the mascots for the 2012 Olympics in London, England. Wenlock will represent the Olympic games and Mandeville will represent the Paralympic games. Their names are a piece of history.

Wenlock is named after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock where, in the mid-19th century, the Wenlock Games became one of the inspirations for the modern Olympic movement.

Mandeville's name is derived from Stoke Mandeville, in Buckinghamshire, home to Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

In the 1940s Dr Ludwig Guttman came to the hospital to set up a new spinal unit to help former soldiers suffering from spinal cord injuries.

Looking for ways to inspire those in his care he encouraged them to take up sport and the Stoke Mandeville Games was formed, widely recognised as a forerunner of the modern Paralympic movement.

The characters' appearances are loaded with symbolism, explained at The Daily Mail. Link to story. http://www.ourlondon2012.com/mascots/ to website.-via Holy Kaw!

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What of The Empire Strikes Back were a 3D movie from the 1950s? It would look somewhat like this. A list of the video sources can be seen at the YouTube link. -via The Daily What

A mouse doesn't have to have experience with a cat to be afraid, be very afraid. But they must have the nose to pick up the chemical signals of danger.

Mice have a specialized organ in their noses that picks up chemical signals, called the vomeronasal organ, which helps them detect pheromones emitted by other mice. These mice pheromones have a direct effect on behavior–most obviously in the realms of mating and fighting. In this new study, published in the journal Cell, neurobiologist Lisa Stowers decided to investigate whether the vomeronasal organ was capable of picking up signals from other species as well.

The reseachers took normal lab mice and mutant mice with inactive vomeronasal organs and presented them with cotton balls laced with predator smells, including cat saliva and rat urine. The normal mice backed into the corners of their cages as if trying to escape a predator’s attention, but the mutant mice showed no signs of concern. The mutants were so relaxed that they didn’t even react when a live but anesthetized rat was placed in their cages.

By process of elimination, the scientists were able to isolate some proteins that spelled "cat" to the mice's vomeronasal organs. Link

This would be dangerous if it were a real ad. Link -via Nag on the Lake

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A Russian short film from 1946, way before computer generated effects! -via Dark Roasted Blend

Rachael Robinson of Toft, Lincolnshire, England married Duncan Turner while they were on vacation in Canada. For the ceremony, she wore a dress made completely of recycled materials, including 13 feet of bubble wrap!

Primary school teacher Rachael originally had the white dress made for her by parents of pupils for a term time recyclable materials fashion show last month.

But when fiancé Duncan popped the question while on holiday in Canada days later, she knew exactly which dress she would be wearing for the official ceremony.

The dress is made from sheets of carefully stitched bubble wrap, attached to an inner cloth lining, and finished off with white foam packaging material and Haribo sweets.

The couple had a second, more traditional ceremony for the families back home in England. http://swns.com/bubble-wrap-wedding-dress-is-pop-of-the-cloths-for-recycled-bride-171045.html -via Unique Daily

Reddit member caesararum wrote a beautiful essay speculating on what it's like to be Voyager 2, the space probe launched in 1977 that is still sending back data from beyond the edge of our solar system (but showing signs of age). The prose is obviously from someone who is not only well-versed in Voyager's mission, but also in awe of it. Here is a small portion:

It is 1989, and you have done well, but you are not done yet.

There will not be another planet, not even a single additional source of heat nor velocity from here on out. Your energy budgets are recalculated, your mission extended. By now, the thousands of people who were once committed to getting you off the ground have largely moved on; some have died, some have found new careers... and a select few still listen. You faithfully make your way towards the outer edges of the system, growing colder, losing even the power necessary to keep yourself warm. In 1998, the decision is made that you no longer have the energy to operate your sensors; the last of your eyes are closed, forever. Your designers, perhaps optimistically, chose well when selecting your instrumentation - a number of packages remain relevant even beyond the orbits of the last of the gas giants. By now, though, it has been two decades since your departure, and technology has not halted in its progression. Computers have advanced, entire architectures have come and gone, and the systems able to understand what you have to say gradually fall apart. There are few machines left in the world that can even understand your language, and they are kept together solely for your sake. Perhaps it is pride, perhaps curiosity, that motivates men to maintain the vigil; whatever the case, you continue to do the only things you know. Detect, transmit.

The full text is part of a comment thread with additional information in subsequent comments. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

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Nothing is going to stop this young lady! In the comments at YouTube, her parents say that this was really just a one-time affirmation, but that Jessica, now 12, is a straight A student and an athlete. -via Holy Kaw!

Stanley Kubrick directed 13 feature films over five decades. Can you name them all? Can you come close? Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss asks you to do just that, in three minutes. I didn't come close, but I kicked myself when I saw the answers! Link

It's hard to believe that twenty years have passed since Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, passed away on May 16, 1990. A half-dozen authors at GeekDad got together to post remembrances and a tribute to the Muppetmaster. Matt Blum says:

I was seventeen when I heard Jim Henson had died. It seemed impossible: he was Kermit, and Kermit was always there. He was only a few years older than my parents, so what kind of world was it where someone that young and that brilliant could die? I was, truly, as sad as I would have been if a friend had died suddenly, and felt the loss as keenly. I was angry, too, when I heard that he had died of untreated pneumonia, angry that he hadn’t gone to the doctor. Angry that the Muppets would never be the same.

I’m not angry any more, but the sadness is still there. I feel it every time I see — or, more accurately, hear — any of the characters he used to play. I don’t envy Steve Whitmire his job: how hard must it have been to pick up Kermit the first time after Henson’s death, put his hand inside the sleeve, and try to sound as much like Henson as possible? I’m glad that the Muppets, and Henson’s former characters, are still around. But they will never quite be the same.

Oh yes, there are videos as well. Link

(Image credit: Alan Light)

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This five-month-old dog hears a fart machine and immediately checks to see if she produced it. -via Arbroath

Several studies of American men and women find that if you ask people to identify their favorite color, women tend to select colors closer to red, and men on average tend to select colors around blue. The reason behind this difference is up in the air, but there are several theories. A recent academic paper proposes a new theory to add to the list, the ecological theory:

The authors here propose that humans prefer colors like blues and greens because those colors and ecologically healthy (blue skies, clean water, healthy vegetation), and do not prefer colors like brown because it's associated with stuff that is ecologically unhealthy (like crap and things that are rotting).

Then they went about testing the theory by correlating color preference with objects that were judged favorable or unfavorable by the test subjects. Although the ecological theory incorporates parts of several other color theories, the data seems to support this idea more than previous theories. Link

Aren't you glad we can just cover those legs with jeans these days? This strange ad from the August 1953 issue of Mechanix Illustrated is one of many old ads featured at the blog Centuries of Advice & Advertisements. Link -via TYWKIWDBI