Neatorama reader Hunter Wright was impressed by the Beer Scooter video posted yesterday. He did some further research and found this page from 2002 explaining Bacchus' Beer Scooter.

How many times have you woken up in the morning after a hard night of drinking and thought 'How did I get home?' As hard as you try, you cannot piece together your return journey from the bar to your home.

The answer to this puzzle is that you used a beer scooter.

The beer scooter is a mythical form of transport, owned and leased out to the drunk by Bacchus the Roman god of wine. Bacchus has branched out since the decrease in the worship of the Roman pantheon and bought a large batch of these magical devices.

http://www.chunder.com/blog/bacchus.html

Scientists in Argentina are studying the effect of methane produced by livestock on global warming. To measure the amount of gas produced by cows, animals have been outfitted with pink tanks to collect their farts!

The Argentine researchers discovered methane from cows accounts for more than 30 per cent of the country's total greenhouse emissions.

As one of the world's biggest beef producers, Argentina has more than 55 million cows grazing in its famed Pampas grasslands.

Guillermo Berra, a researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology, said every cow produces between 8000 to 1,000 litres of emissions every day.

Researchers say feeding cows clover and alfalfa instead of grain can reduced emissions by 25%. Link -via Arbroath

I've said before that as much as we enjoy a happy ending, it's the movies with the not-so-happy endings that we remember the most. Not all the 20 movies in The End: the best movie endings ever, from E.T. to Casablanca from the Times Online have happy endings (some do), but they are all memorable. I skipped over the movies I haven't yet seen, but the movies on this list that I have seen indeed have perfect endings. I shouldn't have to warn you that this list contains spoilers. What other movies would you add? Link -via Digg

An onomatopoeia {wiki} is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, suggesting its source object, such as "click," "bunk", "clang," "buzz," "bang," or animal noises such as "oink", "slurp", or "meow". Las Onomatopeyas is a collection of screenshots of the onomatopoeias you may remember from the Batman TV series. Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: John A. Pennyworth and Scott Sebring)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has named eight new natural wonders to the World Heritage List. They are:

* Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Canada)
* Mount Sanqingshan National Park (China)
* Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems (France)
* Surtsey (Iceland)
* Saryarka - Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan)
* Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (Mexico)
* Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona (Switzerland)
* Socotra Archipelago (Yemen)

Live Science has the story, with links to more information on each. Pictured are the lagoons of New Caledonia, France. Link -via Geek Like Me

(image credit: IUCN/Dan Laffoley)

Art on toilet paper! Why didn't I think of that one?

Artintimity is a collaborative, artistic and original photoblog concept where people from all horizons express what they are thinking about...while sitting alone in a toilet.

Why in a toilet ?

Because it is one of the few places in the world where people are unproductive and really alone with themselves !

See the collection (it's brand new, so there will be more in the future) and submit your own if you'd like. http://www.artintimity.com/ -Thanks, Ren!

(Vimeo link)
Magnetic Movie is an award-winning film by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. It was shot at NASA Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. Link -Thanks, Lance!

Photographer Steve Schofield takes pictures of British science fiction and fantasy fans in their homes.

My practice is concerned with exploring the fascination that the British public has with American popular culture and the sub-cultural world of fandom. In the images, I have shown people in their own homes and environments wearing costumes that they would be dressed in to attend events with other like-minded individuals. It seeks to offer a glimpse into seemingly ordinary lives of my subjects and allows the private to become public. The work hints at the depth of people's fantasies and the methods they employ to adopt this culture as part of their own lifestyle as a means of escapism.

The work makes a political reference to globalisation and America's ongoing ability to infiltrate all cultures via various channels of media. Much of daily life is influenced by 'Americanisms' whether through language, food or fashion, which can often be traced back to music videos, the Hollywood film industry, advertising and American sit-coms.

Link -Thanks, Jon Jason!

Today's ABC World News Webcast features a look at Alex's post from last week, the Top 10 Strangest Anti-Terrorism Patents. Since Alex is camera-shy, I was recruited to fill in. Link to Neatorama segment. Link to entire webcast.

Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test how well you can interpret Microsoft Office 2007 icons. A lot of people find them confusing. I got 58% (7 out of 12) just by guessing. Still, if I used Microsoft products, that wouldn't help me much! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/16348

(YouTube link)
Dopey the hamster has her own private elevator made of Legos! Watch her use it to get to her sleeping quarters, although it takes her a few tries. -via Boing Boing

Which animal is cuter? Give your opinion at Continuum of Cute. You are given 100 pictures of animals, and you arrange them so the cutest is in the bottom right corner and the least cute is in the top left corner. You can also browse to see how others ranked the animals. Link -via the Presurfer

(YouTube link)
A scooter made from a beer box. This brings a whole new meaning to the term "case mod"! It was spotted near the city of Kaufbeuren in Germany. -Thanks, özi!

Isn't thing the cutest thing! Forum member WJN milled this tiny robot from brass, to see how small he could make one. As you can see, he's standing on a quarter to show the scale. Link -Thanks, amoebaboy!

(YouTube link)
Western Spaghetti is wonderful new stop-motion short from the genius PES. You really should look through his entire portfolio. Link -Thanks, Jon Jason!