Here's a blog that consists of newspaper headlines that appeared in comic books. The lack of context makes them funnier than they were ever intended to be! Link -via Metafilter

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a nuclear reactor looks like? BibliOdyssey has a collection of posters showing cutaways of existing reactors around the world from the magazine Nuclear Engineering. The reactor shown is in Dorset, England. Link

Erik Martin always wanted to be a superhero. The 13-year-old even designed his own secret identity as Electron Boy. On Thursday, his wish came true with the help of the regional chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Erik suffers from liver cancer, but he was ready to respond when Spider Man called for his assistance.

Pulling off a wish like this one required a big story, and a lot of heart. And so, with a note of panic in his voice, Spider-Man explained the dilemma: "Dr. Dark" and "Blackout Boy" had imprisoned the Seattle Sounders in a locker room at Qwest Field. Only Electron Boy could free them.

Erik got into his red-and-blue superhero costume, and called on the powers of Moonshine Maid, who owns a DeLorean sports car. For good measure, more than 20 motorcycle officers from the Bellevue Police Department and King County and Snohomish sheriff's offices escorted Electron Boy to Seattle.

"They shut down 405 — they shut down I-90," marveled Moonshine Maid, aka Misty Peterson. "I thought it would just be me, in the car."

At Qwest Field, Electron Boy was directed by frantic fans to the Sounders locker room, where the entire team was shouting for help behind jammed doors. With a little help from Lightning Lad, the alter ego of local actor Rob Burgess, Erik opened the door with his lightning rod. The Sounders cheered.

That's just the beginning of the story. Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy had also trapped a city worker in a bucket truck and stalled elevators at the Space Needle. Erik rescued everyone, helped police arrest the bad guys, and accepted a key to the city. Link to story. Link to photographs. -via I Am Bored

(image credit: Dean Rutz/The Seattle Times)

Also, Electron Boy has a Facebook page.

Because of the huge number of stories, links, and videos on Neatorama this past week, it's possible you might have missed some of our original articles. We don't want that to happen!

Jill Harness was very busy writing this past week. Last Sunday was International Penguin Day, so she collected fascinating fun facts about penguins in the article Chilling Out With Formal-Feathered Friends.

On Monday, she posted Doctor Who? What? about the many faces of the beloved British sci-fi hero.

She also brought us Dancing To The Beat Of A Different Bass, a roundup of strange and different guitars.

Jill was busy Catching Up with the A-Team by looking back at the TV show and looking forward to the feature film.

If you're looking for distractions on Facebook, she also gave us Fabulously Funny Facebook Fan Pages.

Stacy Conradt looked at Unexpected Inventions from Unexpected People. I had no idea that two of the Marx Brothers were inventors!

Stacy also posted If at First You Don’t Succeed: Very Famous Book Rejections. Do you think Shakespeare would have such problems getting published today?

Alex collected 10 Neat Facts About G.I. Joe in honor of the official declaration of April 30, 2010 as "G.I. Joe Day" in Rhode Island.

David gave us the debut of Ask Otis! to introduce Neatorama's new YouTube channel and invite your questions for future episodes of Ask Otis.

This week's featured guest post was 15 Little Known Geek/Nerd Holidays and Observances by D. Salmons from iGadget Life. A handy resource for filling out your calendar for the year -after all, you don't want to miss an opportunity to celebrate!

From Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, we learned about the Top Ten US Generals. Many folks added their favorite generals in the comments, and argued about whether a Confederate war leader can really be considered a "US" general.

From Mental_floss Magazine we found out about Little Guys Who Became Historical Heavyweights. It's the history we don't already know that's the most interesting!

Our contests included the What Is It? game. Congratulations to winners Jerry Kelly and das! Alex posted a rather cryptic teaser about an iPad giveaway coming soon. And as always, David is running nearly-constant contests on Neatorama's Twitter feed and Facebook page.

Neatorama is proud to team up with mental_floss for the How Did You Know? contest. You can catch up with the daily challenges on day one,  day two, day three, and day four to get ready for the big challenge on Monday. There are several ways to win prizes, but you have to play!

A house cat in Florida named Bobbi had six kittens and then nursed two other kittens for an animal shelter. Her latest assignment: three bobcat kittens!

The baby bobcats — two females named Midnight and Rain, plus a male, Storm — will be fed by Bobbi for up to four weeks, Big Cat Rescue president Jamie Veronica said. The kittens were given those names because "we drove through a midnight rain storm to get them," Veronica said. A hunter brought the kittens to a veterinary clinic in Alabama earlier this month, Baskin said. Vets said they think the hunter shot the kittens' mother. It is legal in many states, including Florida, to hunt bobcats for sport, Baskin said. "He walked in with a shotgun in one hand and a bag of kittens in the other," she said.

The bobcats will be sheltered for about 18 months and then returned to the wild. There's a video and a news story of how Bobbi came to be involved. Link -via Arbroath

(YouTube link)

A group of GIs stationed in Afghanistan lip sync and dance to Lady Gaga's song "Telephone". They did a great job, but you can almost feel the boredom that inspired this. -via YesButNoButYes

Racing is in the spotlight as the annual Kentucky Derby is set for tomorrow. Horse breeding and racing are expensive businesses which can pay off big or turn out to be a money pit. Mental_floss has several stories of studs that were duds, and some that succeeded way beyond the investor's expectations.

When the auctioneers brought a colt who was only known as “number 153” to the auction block, a fierce bidding war broke out. Buyers weren’t afraid to open their wallets for a colt that was described as “perfect,” and when the hammer dropped the horse went for a record $16 million. The winning bidders quickly christened the colt The Green Monkey, and excitement to see how the horse would do in races began to build. After all, the colt had run an eighth of a mile in a blazing 9.8 seconds in pre-auction workouts, so anything was possible once he started racing.

How did The Green Monkey perform? Read and find out. Link

Ken and Carol Marcoux of Boulder, Colorado were parked on the side of a road to watch planes take off from the local airport. They saw a small plane approach, buffeted by the wind.

To the couple's horror, the plane -- whose pilot was later identified as Joe Curtis, 67, of Commerce City -- was pointed right at their car and approaching at what Marcoux estimated was 100 mph. Carol Marcoux screamed "Ken!" and her husband stepped on the gas, moving the Prius forward just enough to spare them a potentially fatal hit.

Carol Marcoux said she heard "a big sound of glass breaking" as the right wingtip of the plane slammed into the back of the car -- shattering the rear passenger window and denting the rear quarter panel -- just inches behind her head.

The plane stopped in a field. Pilot Joe Curtis grabbed a mysterious bag, jumped out, and ran toward the airport! Curtis contacted the FAA about the accident hours later. Link

(image credit: Marty Caivano)

Noëlle took her favorite fortune found in cookies and made it big enough to wear as a scarf! You can get one at her Etsy store. Link -via The Daily What

(video link)

On this date in 1939, the New York World's fair opened. One of the exhibits was a ride called Futurama, sponsored by General Motors. Visitors got a glimpse of what life would be like in 1960, particularly the vision of an interstate highway system and urban planning. Separation of industrial, commercial, farmland, and residential areas were presented as an admirable goal. Curiously, new highways bypassing the slums was proposed as preferable to improving those neighborhoods. Read more about Futurama and Futurama II (at the 1964 World's Fair) at Wired. Link -via Metafilter

An overwhelmed young woman wrote to ZeFrank and asked for a pick-me-up. She sounded depressed, so he wrote a song for her. Then he got other people to sing it as well, and then mixed the voices into a lovely choral affirmation. It made her feel better. It might make you feel better, too! Read the story of how the project came about. Link -via b3ta

History is full of events that would have ended quite differently if some previously unknown person (or animal, in one case) hadn't seized an opportunity. Here are four such stories.

The slave you don't mess with in Texas

Big Tex may owe its independence day to a small slave named Emily West. According to some sources, when Mexico's General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna marched into the area in 1836, Emily noticed him leering at her.She dispatched another servant to warn the Texas army of Santa Anna's battle plans and stayed behind to exploit the general's weakness. On the morning of Sam Houston's attack, she distracted Santa Anna between the sheets, leaving his army leaderless and ineffective against the much smaller Texan force. When Emily's owner learned of her bravery and sacrifice, he freed her, and Emile (known as the Yellow Rose of Texas) lived out the rest of her life as a free woman.

The soldier who took out an entire army

During the war of Spanish succession, the French army had nearly taken the citadel at Turin, in present-day Italy.But then an undistinguished Italian soldier named Pietro Micca devised a clever plan. In the tunnel where the French had made their breach, Micca armed a mine, lured the French closer, and then blew himself up along with his enemies. The event turned the tide of the battle and, ultimately the war. It's now thought that Micca didn't intend to sacrifice himself, but there's a museum in Turin named after him anyway.

The beverage vendor who helped Buddha reach Enlightenment

Before achieving Enlightenment, Siddhartha Gautama explored the extremes of hedonism and asceticism. For the latter, he meditated alone in a cave for 40 days and emerged nearly dead from starvation. Upon seeing him, a local village girl named Sujata approached Siddhartha and offered him some milk and rice pudding. The meager sustenance gave him the energy to walk to the tree under which he meditated and achieved Enlightenment. Although the story is likely apocryphal, it's possible that Sujata was the most important beverage vendor in history.

The mole that made a mountain

When William of Orange and his wife assumed the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones in 1689, the Jacobites labored to overthrow him and restore the House fo Stuart. But what a gang of ornery Scotsmen couldn't accomplish, one proud ittle mole did. Legend has it that a clump of dirt created by the rodent's burrow tripped William's horse, throwing the rider off and shattering his royal collarbone. As he tried to recover, William caught pneumonia and eventually died. Amazingly, the mole's hard work was not forgotten. For years, the Jacobites continues to toast the "Little Gentleman in Black Velvet" who helped eliminate their nemesis.

Image credits: Flickr user TakenByTina, Flickr user el patojo, and Wikipedia user Mikiwikipikidikipedia.

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The article above, written by Graeme Wood, appeared in Scatterbrained section of the Mar - Apr 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine (the excellent "The Future of Sex" issue!). It is reprinted here with permission.

Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today!

Adam Gontier, lead singer of the band Three Days Grace, commissioned artist Chris Conte to make him a microphone stand. What he got is something straight out of The Terminator! Link -via The Daily What

(image credit: Dennis Blachut)

A Canada goose landed in a garden in Toms River, New Jersey with an illegal hunting arrow stuck through its chest. The garden happened to belong to retired veterinarian Bernard Levine. Dr. Levine captured the goose and removed the 26-inch arrow, which was lodged six inches deep in the bird's flesh. Then he took the goose to a bird rehabilitation center.

"This is a smart goose," said Dr Levine, 82. "He happened to come into the yard of a veterinarian that could take care of him."

After it recovered at The Raptor Trust, the goose was released last week into a stream in a wooded area on the trust's property.

"It feels great to see him free and liberated, enjoying life the way a goose should," Dr Levine said, as the goose preened and waded downstream.

Levine also removed several air rifle pellets from the goose. Link -via Arbroath

Last week we showed you a video of the sun's surface flaring up on March 30th. It was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory space telescope. Bad Astronomy Blog has new footage taken on April 19th of a solar flare with amazing detail. Looks like things are really happening on our sun! Link