Go ahead and play with your food. Nathan Shields of Saipancakes made a convincing and surprisingly sturdy pancake model of a tree house for his kids. You can see another photo of them playing with it at the link. 

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Asians, do you see yourself doing these photography poses? JinnyboyTV documented all Asian photography stereotypes that may be familiar to you in this clip: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Picture Correct

Out On Bail Socks

Are you looking for a safe and subtle way to express the edgier side of your personality? You need the Out On Bail Socks from the NeatoShop. This dangerously fun pair of crew socks features black and white stripes and the text, "Out On Bail."  

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Footwear. 

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Is the the ultimate geek mashup or what? Emil Johansson has sorted and categorized 114 characters of J.R.R. Tolkien's world and arranged them in the style of the periodic table of the elements. Each has a number, symbol, birth and death dates, and other information as necessary. Lord of the Rings is such an epic tale that you need a program to keep track of the participants, and this table makes a handy short form for that purpose. See the full size table at LotrProject. Link

Emil Johansson also created the Lord of the Rings Family Tree, the Middle-Earth Problem Solving Chart, and the Timeline Of The One Ring.

The Tunguska Event was a huge explosion that occurred in a remote area of Siberia on June 30, 1908. It was a thousand times as powerful as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Scientists aren't certain what happened, but the broadest consensus is that a large meteorite or comet hit the earth. A Russian scientist named Andrei Zlobin reveals that he may have fragments from that mysterious celestial object:

This expedition took place in 1988 and for some unexplained reason, Zlobin waited 20 years to examine his haul in detail. But in 2008, he sorted the collection and found three stones with clear evidence of melting and regmalypts, thumblike impressions found on the surface of meteorites which are caused by ablation as the hot rock falls through the atmosphere at high speed.

Zlobin and others have used tree ring evidence to estimate the temperatures that the blast created on the ground and says that these were not high enough to melt rocks on the surface. However, the fireball in the Earth’s atmosphere would have been hot enough for this.

So Zlobin concludes that the rocks must be fragments of whatever body collided with Earth that day. 

Link -via The Presurfer

(Photo: Technology Review)

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A kitten aspires to be a jack-in-the-box! Even after that, there's some bonus clips of cats in boxes for your internet viewing enjoyment. -via Tastefully Offensive

Wait, before you condemn the picture above, you should know that Mr. Balls is a mascot for the Associação de Assistência às Pessoas com Câncer, a Brazilian non-profit that helps people with cancer. They're raising awareness about testicular cancer.

Consider our awareness, ah, um, raised, Mr. Balls! *thumbs up*

Check out more pics of Mr. Balls over at AAPC's website: Link - via Gawker

You have admitted that this marvelous fruit of my loins is cute. That is insufficient. For such a child has never been born into the human race. Behold my child and wonder.

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Here we have a compilation of late night infomercials from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Just dip it in carbonite! Only $19.95 (plus shipping and handling). Produced by Milynn Sarley, also known as The Gamer Chick. -via Viral Viral Videos

Photo: David Walter Banks/The Wall Street Journal

Like the NeatoShop T-Shirt said, Zombies Were People Too. Actually, in case of The Walking Dead, they were beautiful people. Take actress Xan Angelovich, for instance, who got turned into a walker by special-effects makeup artist Andy Schoneberg: Link

 Love Zombies? View more Zombie items at the NeatoShop

It's called the AT-AT-WV. Mark Stafford's Hoth-bound battle machine is reminiscent of the old Volkswagen vans, complete with a pop-up roof for overnight stays in the field.

Link -via Nerdcore

A limited edition run of Tayto chocolate bars with cheese and onion inside sold out quickly in Ireland, but 24 of the bars are going to Australians -thousands of whom entered a raffle for a chance to eat one!

The bars are made from the famous Irish Tayto cheese and onion crisps mixed with Irish chocolate - all in one bar.

A winning combination or a controversial mix? The jury is out but the response has been overwhelming.

Taste Ireland CEO Eamon Eastwood is the holder of the elusive chocolate bars and decided to raffle them off in a Facebook campaign.

"I couldn't believe the reaction, it went off the richter scale with almost half a million impressions," said Mr Eastwood.

The last five bars were given away Friday. Link -via Arbroath

If you didn't get one, you can make your own. Link

If you think that Early Earth, without industrial pollutants from humankind whatsoever, smelled fresh and natural, you'd be in for a rude and stinky surprise.

Scientists have determined that billions of years ago, Earth smelled of rotten eggs (irony: no chicken then, either):

Their work has revealed spherical and rod-shaped bacteria dining on the cylindrical outer shells of another, larger bacterium known as Gunflintia. To digest those Gunflintia sheaths, the feeding bacteria would have had to use oxygen atoms taken from salts, or "sulfates," in seawater. In the process, the microbes formed gaseous carbon dioxide, which would have been released into the atmosphere.

Another byproduct of this biochemical process is hydrogen sulfide, which produces a stench commonly known as "the rotten egg smell," explained Martin Brasier, a paleobiologist at Oxford University in London.

"The whole world didn't smell of rotten eggs," said Brasier, "but if you had a sensitive nose, it would have been very widespread indeed."

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Lion Hooded Bathrobe

Have you been hunting for the perfect robe for your favorite mostly nocturnal animal. Capture the Lion Hooded Bathrobe from the NeatoShop.This sunny-yellow terry bathrobe looks like a cheerful lion. The lion's mane is made of beautiful orange and white grosgrain ribbon. Hopefully after spending a relaxing evening in this adorable bathrobe your little lion will sleep well tonight.  

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Baby & Tot items. 

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Mary, a chef in Poznań, Poland, whipped cream cheese, cream and white chocolate into a delicious mousse. She served it in chocolate eggshells. There are only six of them, so, sorry, I won't share.

Link (Translation)

If you can discern anything at all from her obituary, Antonia Larroux had a non-stop sense of humor. Her paid obituary ran in the New York Times Friday and Saturday, although Larroux lived in Mississippi.

Waffle House lost a loyal customer on April 30, 2013. Antonia W. "Toni" Larroux died after a battle with multiple illnesses: lupus, rickets, scurvy, kidney disease and feline leukemia. She had previously conquered polio as a child contributing to her unusually petite ankles and the nickname "polio legs" given to her by her ex-husband, Jean F. Larroux, Jr. It should not be difficult to imagine the multiple reasons for their divorce 35+ years ago. Two children resulted from that marriage: Hayden Hoffman and Jean F. Larroux, III. Due to multiple, anonymous Mother's Day cards which arrived each May, the children suspect there were other siblings but that has never been verified.

But that's just the beginning. Read about Larroux's four oddly-nicknamed sisters, her overdue library books, and the "questionable choice" of a clergyman for her funeral. She must have been a delightful woman. Link -via Bits and Pieces

Photo: Zhang et al./Science

Some strains of the flu virus, like the H5N1 bird flu virus, are highly lethal but aren't easily transmitted from humans to humans, whereas others are very contagious but mild. What would happen if the two are mixed to create a new, hybrid virus that is both highly lethal and contagious?

Apparently, a team of Chinese scientists haven't seen the Hollywood movies about such dangerous experimentations and went ahead to create such a new virus:

They combined H5N1 avian influenza, which is highly lethal but doesn’t transmit easily between people, with the highly contagious H1N1 swine flu strain responsible for infecting tens of millions of people in 2009.

The new hybrid virus passed easily between guinea pigs, which are used to study how flu infects mammals. Molecular changes in the virus may provide clues of what to look for in circulating H5N1 strains, perhaps allowing scientists to anticipate when viruses will more easily infect humans.

“Mammalian-transmissible H5N1 viruses can be generated in nature,” said virologist Chen Hualan at China’s Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, who led the research team. “High attention should be paid during routine influenza surveillance to monitor such high risk H5N1 hybrid viruses in nature.”

What could possible go wrong? Brandon Keim of Wired has the story: Link

Don't underestimate the power of good champagne. In the hands of a skilled craftsman like sjroth, an ordinary champagne cork can become a terrifying Sith. The helmet is made of sculpey and the lightsaber is powered by a 3 mm red LED.

Link -via Technabob

James Wallace and the Naked Light's song "To the River" is beautiful, but the reason it's here on Neatorama is because its music video is quite unusual: it's shot entirely through the reflection of an eyeball.

The video was shot and directed by Paul Greenhouse of Casaverde Pictures in a single take.

Watch: Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo] - via PetaPixel

Behold, a modern confession written on a bathroom stall, with a response that surprises no one. This is one of The 24 Most Important Things Ever Written In Bathroom Stalls, which are funny but contain some NSFW words. It's bathroom humor, of course. Link

Fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch stocks large clothes for men (their T-shirts go up to 2XL sizes), but why not for women? Because it doesn't want fat women wearing its clothes, of course:

Abercrombie doesn't even list women's XL or XXL on its size chart. Its largest women's pants are a size 10, while H&M's standard line goes up to a size 16, and American Eagle offers up to 18. [...]
It's not surprising that Abercrombie excludes plus-sized women considering the attitude of CEO Mike Jeffries, said Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail and CEO of newsletter The Robin Report.

"He doesn't want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people," Lewis told Business Insider. "He doesn't want his core customers to see people who aren't as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they're one of the 'cool kids.'" [...]

In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries himself said that his business was built around sex appeal. 

“It’s almost everything. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,” Jeffries said.

Jeffries also told Salon that he wasn't bothered by excluding some customers. “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

Ashley Lutz over at Business Insider has more: Link

The NeatoShop, on the other hand, carries Ladies T-shirts up to 2XL (that's the largest size they make). We're also in the process of converting thousands of shirts so they will be available up to 6XL. Because you're all beautiful and cool to us.

François Perrier loved frogs. From 1848 to 1860, he collected and preserved 108 of them engaging in decidedly non-batrachian behavior, such as attending school, marching in formation and riding squirrels. They're on display at the Frog Museum in Estavayer-le-Lac, Switzerland. Who's up for a road trip?

Link -via The Oddment Emporium

(Photos: Rama)

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Robinsons is a British drink company. The juice in this ad is concentrated, and putting water into it is normal, so don't let that distract you too much. You'll probably want to watch this video twice, because once you see where it's going, there are little details that will make sense. -via Buzzfeed 

If you can't wake up in the morning, perhaps this is the alarm that will get you up and out of bed ... by threatening to hit you where it hurts if you snooze back asleep: in the pocketbook.

Behold, the Money Shredding Alarm Clock, made by Rich Olson of Nothing Labs. He combined Sparkfun Clockit kit with a USB Paper Shredder:

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Technabob

That's Why Lip Balm

They say apples don't fall from pear trees. That's why you have decided to embrace the fact that you are your Mother's Daughter with the That's Why Lip Balm from the NeatoShop. This deliciously fun apple pie  flavored lip balm is perfect for keeping your lips soft and moisturized. Now you can avoid getting chapped lips as you utter all those phrases that you swore you would never say to your own children. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Personal Care items. 

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Many Americans look at Cinco de Mayo as a celebration of Mexico, with tacos, margaritas, and piñatas. That's barely more authentic than celebrating St. Patrick's Day with green beer. But the holiday is not Mexico's independence day -it's a local celebration in the state of Puebla, centered in the capital of Puebla. For a real authentic holiday, dig a little deeper.

But what America’s Cinco de Mayo misses is the traditional food of Mexico, named to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, a recognition given to only one other cuisine (French). And, nachos with refried beans, cheese wiz and jalapenos is nowhere on the list or in the country. Taco Bell has even tried opening up in Mexico but each time has failed, simply because no one will eat there.

What makes traditional Mexican fare worthy of such a distinction? You won’t find cumin soaked ground beef hard shell tacos topped with iceberg and cheddar. But, you will find beef barbacoa that has been smoked underground in banana leaves or carnitas topped with queso fresco, pickled onions and homemade salsa verde wrapped in a warm homemade corn tortilla that has been ever so lightly heated on a comal. And Puebla, just so happens to be considered by many, including Rick Bayless and Mark Bittman, as the gastronomic capital of Mexico.

Smithsonian tells us about the regional favorites Mole Poblano, Chalupas, and Chiles en Nogada, with links to recipes for each. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user dbking)