Nana Kikuchi designed these place mats that make setting a proper table easy, with silhouettes of the proper flatware placement.  They and the coasters come in a convenient roll. Link -via Nag on the Lake

Look at me! I'm an action figure! This bit of swag was a total surprise. Can you imagine the fun I'm going to have posing this doll and taking pictures to illustrate blog posts? It's an action figure (or doll) from CMT's "Adventure Country", which is a group name for their two new shows. I am apparently a character from Danger Coast, a reality show that follows the Marine Operations Bureau of Miami, a kind of rescue squad for the ocean. The other show, Gator 911 is about an alligator shelter. My action figure did not come with an alligator, but it did come with a life jacket, oxygen tanks, a uniform, a wetsuit, a computer, and other equipment. This is a limited edition doll, so you won't find it in stores, but you can take part in an interactive adventure at the "guided tour" part of the website. Link

If you've ever been to an emergency room, you've seen the chart they give you to help describe the pain you are feeling on a scale of one to ten. Allie redrew the chart to make it more descriptive of real-world pain. Link -via Buzzfeed

(YouTube link)

The Carroll High School Chargers powder puff cheerleaders perform a halftime routine for the crowd in Fort Wayne, Indiana. -via YesButNoButYes

Bill and Amarins packed up their three young daughters Cheyenne, Jasmine, and Robin and set off on a 7,000 mile journey from Mt. Vernon, Kentucky (just up the road from me) to Alaska. What's different about this trip is that they are traveling on a bicycle built for five! They call themselves the Pedouins, which is combination of pedal and Bedouins, meaning nomadic people. The journey included a detour to Mexico, since the purpose of the trip is to teach their children about the world. The family began the trip in October of last year, and they've made it to California so far. You can follow their adventure on their website. Link -Thanks, Hanan!

Author and food activist Raj Patel says he is not the Messiah. But after his appearance on the TV show The Colbert Report, he found himself to be an object of worship for a religious group. Patel only wanted to plug his latest book called The Value of Nothing.

Their reasoning? Patel's background and work coincidentally matched a series of prophecies made by an 87-year-old Scottish mystic called Benjamin Creme, the leader of a little-known religious group known as Share International. Because he matched the profile, hundreds of people around the world believed that Patel was the living embodiment of a figure they called Maitreya, the Christ or "the world teacher".

His job? To save the world, and everyone on it.

"It was just really weird," he said. "Clearly a case of mistaken identity and clearly a case of people on the internet getting things wrong."

Patel has issued a denial of holiness on his website,  where he compares his situation to the Monty Python movie The Life of Brian. Followers have traveled thousands of miles to see him. Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: Eliot Khuner)

On March 30, 1848, the roar of Niagara Falls went silent as the river ran dry. No one knew what happened to the water. Factories shut down for lack or power, fish died, and everyone freaked out.

Thousands of people filled the churches to attend special services. They prayed for the falls to start flowing and the world to continue, or for salvation and forgiveness of their sins as the Last Judgment approached.

No one knew why the falls had stopped. The telegraph was still a new invention. Railroads served towns on both sides of the river, but the tracks were unreliable, and Buffalo — the nearest big city — was three hours away even when the trains ran on schedule.

But it was from Buffalo that word eventually arrived that explained the bare falls and dry riverbed. A strong southwest gale winds had pushed a huge chunks of lake ice to the extreme northeastern tip of Lake Erie, blocking the lake’s outlet into the head of the Niagara River. The ice jam had become an ice dam.

On the evening of March 31st, a great wall of water flowed down the riverbed and things were back to normal. Link

You thought that Saturn's moon Mimas looks like the Death Star? The Cassini probe analyzed temperature differences on the surface of Mimas and determined that it is actually Pac-man! Link -via Digg

(image credit: NSA/JPL/SSI)

The LHC began shooting subatomic particles at each other on Tuesday underground across the borders of France and Switzerland, and the world did not end.

Following two false starts due to electrical failures, protons whipped to more than 99 percent of the speed of light and to energy levels of 3.5 trillion electron volts apiece around a 17-mile underground magnetic racetrack outside of Geneva a little after 1 p.m. local time. They crashed together inside apartment-building sized detectors designed to capture every evanescent flash and fragment from microscopic fireballs thought to hold insights into the beginning of the world.

The soundless blooming of proton explosions was accompanied by the hoots and applause of scientists crowded into control rooms at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which built the collider.

Link -via Boing Boing

See the video. Link

Billie Lampard will always be able to tell people that Danger is her middle name, and so will her brother. Their parents Amy and Glenn Lampard of East Melbourne, Australia named the newborn twins Billie Danger and Ridley Danger.

"I've always wanted to be able to say it myself," Mr Lampard said.

"We're actually enjoying calling them the 'Danger Twins' at the moment. It's a bit of a novelty."

Billie Danger Lampard and her brother Ridley Danger Lampard were born about six weeks early at Epworth Freemasons Hospital on Wednesday.

They say family and friends have mixed reactions to the names. http://www.news.com.au/weird-true-freaky/billey-and-ridley-lampard-given-danger-as-middle-name/story-e6frflri-1225846444721 -via Arbroath

Mental_floss has posted plenty of quizzes about US geography, but Canadians will have an edge in today's Lunchtime Quiz. How well do you know Canadian geography? I scored 70%, not bad for someone who has never been to Canada. Link

The crater shown was created in 1970 by the Apollo 13 moon mission. Wait -you remember Apollo 13 {wiki}, don't you? That's the one where Tom Hanks James Lovell and his crew didn't get to land because everything went wrong! Still, they ejected the third stage of the Saturn V rocket and sent it toward the moon's surface. Forty years later, this is considered a fairly new crater. The picture was taken just last year. Read all about it at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link

(image credit: NASA, NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

You think you have troubles at work? Dairy farmer Tony Goltstein of Winchester, Indiana has methane bubbles the size of houses rising up to twenty feet tall, full of gas released by decomposing cow manure. Since wholesale prices of dairy products has plummeted, he cannot afford to properly maintain the manure lagoon. Replacing the plastic liner would cost around $200,000, and Goltstein is afraid the lagoon will overflow if the bubbles under the plastic continue to rise.

This month, Mr. Goltstein asked state regulators to let him pop the bubbles. He said he and his 19-year-old son would slice them open with a knife from a paddleboat.

Bruce Palin, assistant commissioner for the office of land quality at the state environmental agency, said officials were considering the idea. But, he added, "not knowing how much volume of gas is there and how much pressure is on it, we're concerned with just cutting a hole."

Last year, a hog farmer in Hayfield, Minn., was launched 40 feet into the air in an explosion caused by methane gas from a manure pit on his farm. He sustained burns and singed hair.

Mr. Goltstein's attorney, Glenn D. Bowman, acknowledged that the potential existed for an explosion: "We're aware of that sort of common physics issue," he said.

The Goltsteins filed for bankruptcy last month. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Lauren Etter)

(YouTube link)

Is there no end to Maru's talent for entertaining? -via Arbroath

Annette Edwards, who has worked for years to breed the world's biggest rabbit, and was recently in the news for having plastic surgery to look more like Jessica Rabbit, is looking for help. Edwards is holding auditions for the position of rabbit handler, to help with Alice, her rabbit that holds the world's record for the longest bunny, as they made public appearances. Think you have the stuff for this £70,000 a year position?

Current Guinness World Record title holder Annette Edwards, 57, a real-life version of Jessica Rabbit, is looking for a handler to show big bunny Alice over the next year. Whoever gets the role can expect a life-changing year, travelling with Annette to far-flung corners of the globe.Already booked are personal appearances in Paris at the end of April on a television show and the heart of fashion, Milan, in May.

The two-and-a-half year old bunny also weights a whopping three-and-a-half stone so some

strength will be needed. The ideal candidates needs to be someone who can handle the rabbit and loves pets, with a big personality and not be shy in front of the camera.

Link -via Bigredkev