I live in a small town in Kentucky, and the only time you see more than a few young people in Goth clothing is during our annual festival, in the heat of August. Now I've found a niche blog that addresses a question I've pondered: how hot can they be in all that black Victorian attire?

Goths, I love 'em! I even used to be one for a bit (well, I was a Didi-Goth for at least 6 months). But there's one thing that troubles me about our cheery friends: what to do they do in summer? All that makeup, long black leather and rubber must get very sticky. I think we should show our respect for these poor unfortunates, struggling to stand out from the vanilla crowd despite blazing temperatures and sunshine that puts the rest of us in shorts and vest tops.

Goths in Hot Weather posts pictures of people in Goth fashion and rates them on how Goth and how sweaty they appear. Link -via b3ta

Instructables member seamster made this wooden tabletop pinball game out of bits and pieces he had saved over time, like drawer knobs, dowels, rubber bands, and a recycle tool table. The ball is from a computer mouse! Link -via Unique Daily

Characters from TV and movies are often placed in a real college setting. In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you're asked to identify the real college in the background of 13 fictional characters. My wild guesses brought me a score of 38%. You will do better! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25468

The Penguathlon is a sporting event for penguins at the Kelly Tarlton Arctic Encounter in Orakei, New Zealand. Penguins compete in five events: football, Frisbee, surfing, swing ball, and waddle races. This is no joke! New Zealand is home to nine of the 16 penguin species, and the colony at the Arctic Encounter has 80 King and Gentoo penguins in its colony. The sports are showcased as an enrichment exercise for the birds.

“New Zealand has the greatest diversity of penguin species and is arguably the best place in the world to see them. As well as being great fun, the Penguathlon gives people a fantastic chance to get up close with them as well as gaining a better understanding about their welfare”, said Gregg Anderson, Tourism New Zealand’s Regional Manager for UK and Europe.

The Penguathlon, which will run the rest of this month, may become an annual event. Link (with video) -via Arbroath

Rob at Cockeyed.com wanted his own wooden Kindle reader, probably because he already had a great name for it -Kindling! So he contacted Windell at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, who laser-cut an awesome facsimile out of wood. It is now for sale on eBay. Link -via Evil Mad Scientist

A suburb without cars? It's happening in Vauban, Germany, an experimental community near Freiburg where there are no garages, street parking, or driveways. If you have a car and move to Vauban, you purchase a space in a parking building at the edge of town when you buy your home. Most residents do not own a car.

Henk Schulz, a scientist who on one afternoon last month was watching his three young children wander around Vauban, remembers his excitement at buying his first car. Now, he said, he is glad to be raising his children away from cars; he does not worry much about their safety in the street.

In the past few years, Vauban has become a well-known niche community, even if it has spawned few imitators in Germany. But whether the concept will work in California is an open question.

A few experimental car-free communities are trying to get off the ground in the US, but not many people live in them so far.

Besides, convincing people to give up their cars is often an uphill run. “People in the U.S. are incredibly suspicious of any idea where people are not going to own cars, or are going to own fewer,” said David Ceaser, co-founder of CarFree City USA, who said no car-free suburban project the size of Vauban had been successful in the United States.

Link -via Digg

(image credit: Martin Specht for The New York Times)

Wildlife officials are expecting this kangaroo, found shot through the head by a crossbow arrow, to fully recover. The roo was found last Thursday at a park in suburban Melbourne. It's possible that he may have been shot up to a week before being found. He has since been under the care of veterinarians at the Melbourne Zoo.

Wildlife Victoria has posted a Aus$10,000 ( US$7,600, £5,000) reward to find the person responsible.

Wildlife Victoria spokeswoman Fiona Corke, said the kangaroo was rescued just days after another kangaroo was found with an arrow in its rump in the same area.

"It's just unbelievable, I can't believe that anyone would do something so cruel," she said.

Link -via Arbroath

Momlogic posted a collection of YouTube videos featuring babies and young children who are taking on the roles of Star Trek characters, including Starfleet crew members, Klingons, Ferengi, and even the Enterprise itself. Beam me up, Teddy! Link -via Buzzfeed

(Metacafe link)

If you recall the kitten eating a melon video, you won't be surprised at how much the really big cats at Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida enjoy pumpkins and other gourds, both for playing with and for eating. -via Metafilter

A glue formula used by people in South Africa 70,000 years ago required more intelligence than archaeologists normally attribute to Stone Age men. It was made by mixing red ochre with the gum of acacia trees. It turns out that the red ochre serves more than a decorative purpose, as researchers found out when they made some of the glue themselves.

"We discovered that when we used ochre, the glue is much more robust, and the stone tool doesn't come off the shaft," said study team member Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

But making the glue wasn't easy for the ancient Africans.

It was mentally taxing work that would have required humans to account for differences in the chemistry of gum harvested from different trees and in the iron content of ochre from different sites.

"They couldn't possibly have known about chemical pH or iron content … but they knew that certain combinations of things worked very well," Wadley said.

Link

The worldwide rate of twins is one in every 80 births. In India, the normal rate is lower, only one 250 births. But in the village of Kodinhi, in the Indian state of Kerala, there are at least 250 sets of twins in a population of 2,000 families. And the rate of twin births has been increasing over the past decades. Dr Krishnan Sribiju has been studying the phenomenon.

"Without access to detailed biochemical analysis equipment I cannot say for certain what the reason for the twinning is, but I feel that it is something to do with what the villagers eat and drink.

"If that is the case then maybe whatever is causing this exceptional level of twinning can be bottled and provide help for infertile couples." Categorising the twin phenomenon as a naturally occurring anomaly, Dr Sribiju has ruled out genetic factors as the cause due to the localised nature of the village.

He also dismisses any suggestion that the unusual level of twins could be caused by an unknown pollutant pointing to the high number of healthy twins born without any deformities.

Link -via Digg

Preciously at Neatorama: the village of Brazilian Twins.

Officers of the Palm Bay Police Department in Florida keep an eye on a large area by using motorized paragliders!

Police Chief Bill Berger says they are a way for the department to have a bird's eye view of the semi-rural city at minimal cost.

"Because we don't have a lot of roadway here, this gives us the ability to basically take short cuts," said Berger.

The vehicles and training cost $10,000 per officer, which is cost-effective compared to using helicopters. And they have other benefits.

Chief Berger sees the gliders as an ideal tool for searching for missing elderly people who have wandered away.

"The problem with helicopters is you can't go below 1,000 feet," said Berger. "The canopy of trees in our community prevented the helicopter from seeing a woman who had [died] close to her car. The paragliders would have been able to get much lower."

Link -via Fark

(image credit: ABC News)

How well do you know your comedians? In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you'll be given a quote and you decide whether the line is from Steven Wright or Mitch Hedberg. I surprised myself by scoring 79% just by guessing, based on the what I know of the two comedian's styles. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25410

The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development released a new study ranking the world's nations by the happiness levels of their citizens. According to the published results, northern Europeans are the happiest people in the world. The top ten are:

1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. The Netherlands
4. Sweden
5. Ireland
6. Canada
7. Switzerland
8. New Zealand
9. Norway
10. Belgium

The US ranked above average. Link to article. Link to slideshow. -via the Presurfer

(image credit: Eddie Gerald/Alamy)

(YouTube link)
Summer in the Arctic Circle means 24-hour daylight. The sun doesn't set; it just bounces along the horizon! This time-lapse video covers a week of Arctic summertime. Music by Avi Hochberg. -via baszkocsgenyfas