Vampire LEGO Monster Fighter Alarm Clock

Do you have trouble waking during daylight hours? Stop fearing the dawn and return to the land of the living with the Vampire LEGO Monster Fighter Alarm Clock from the NeatoShop. This fang-tastic alarm clock looks like a Monster Fighter Vampire LEGO minifig. He features poseable arms and legs and stands close to 9" tall. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Clocks & Timers. 

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In Katamari, you have to roll a ball around to start collecting as many things as possible. Naturally, using a regular controller for this purpose just isn't all that satisfying. That's why it's so great to see this hacked ball controller that lets you roll like the Prince himself.

Via BoingBoing

A Wiffle ball is a lightweight, plastic baseball that curves when you throw it right. Sure, you've played with them! Mental_floss has its origin story and the run down on the most pressing question you ever had about Wiffle balls.  

What's with the name?

Like a lot of baseball fans, Mullany's son and his friends referred to strikeouts as "whiffs." Since the new invention made knee-buckling curveballs a breeze to throw, pitchers started racking up the punchouts. Mullany named the product the Wiffle Ball to honor its strikeout-friendly breaks.

Why no "h" if the ball is named after whiffs?

The Mullanys allegedly nixed the "h" to save money if they ever had to buy a sign for their fledgling enterprise.

You'll also find out about the serious sport of competitive Wiffle ball. Link

Gourmet and exotic food trucks are hip and trendy now--and not just for humans! There are several food truck businesses in cities around the United States that cater to canine customers. For example, Donna Santucci (above), is the owner of Fido To Go:

In Chicago, Donna Santucci opened Fido To Go to compliment her existing pet-grooming business in 2011. "I have over 40 applicants" who want to license the brand, she said.

Right now, Santucci makes all the cookies and frozen yogurt cups she sells from scratch in a commercial kitchen in downtown Chicago. "I’m looking for a bigger facility now as we speak." [...]

With all of this blurring of the lines between human and dog food, mix-ups sometimes do occur. Santucci said sometimes people tried to buy the frozen yogurt for themselves, and she had to explain that their human palate might not appreciate the unsweetened taste.

Link -via Jalopnik

(Photo: Fido To Go)

Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet ... I'm Hunting Zombies by Warbucks Design

After fwicasseeing the wabbit, the Hunter Fudd is on to wawger game: zombies! Warbucks Design warns us to be vewy, vewy quiet and wear this shirt to avoid being disintegwated by unhip fashion.

Visit Warbucks Design's Facebook Page for more neat designs, then head on over to his NeatoShop page for more T-shirts: Link. Your purchase helps support indie artists as well as this blog - thank you!

Burton's Imaginary Friends	Death Star Maze	Daft Hero	You're a Zombie, Chuck!

View more designs by Warbucks Design | More Funny T-shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Just because you have four legs doesn't mean that you don't support your local baseball team. Fortunately the Arizona Diamondbacks understand that, which is why they recently hosted a dog-friendly day at the stadium, called "Bark at the Park."

Just look how concerned this little guy is about the big game.

Link Via Cute Overload

Oh, great! When I wasn't looking, scientists went ahead and discovered a new human body part. In our eyes, no less:

Harminder Dua, a professor at the University of Nottingham, recently found a new layer in the human cornea, and he's calling it (can you guess?) Dua's layer.

Dua's layer sits at the back of the cornea, which previously had only five known layers. Dua and his colleagues discovered the new body part by injecting air into the corneas of eyes that had been donated for research and using an electron microscope to scan each separated layer.

The researchers now believe that a tear in Dua's layer is the cause of corneal hydrops, a disorder that leads to fluid buildup in the cornea. According to Dua, knowledge of the new layer could dramatically improve outcomes for patients undergoing corneal grafts and transplants.

PopSci has the post: Link

Image: Dashboard Eyeball Wiggler from the NeatoShop. Why, no. That's not weird at all.

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The only things we have in an amount that we cannot change is time. All we can do is decide what we will do with the time we have. In this video, Ze Frank illustrates the time we have with jellybeans. So make the most of the jellybeans you have!  -via mental_floss

Brilliant! I can already taste it in my mouth. Using fresh raspberries ground into a paste is an especially good idea. Monique Volz used multigrain baguette in her recipe, but I'd try it with a sourdough bread.

Link -via Foodbeast

We now have silk fabric that glows under black lights created in three different ways. First, you can buy silk that has been dyed with fluorescent dye. Or you can use silk that was spun by silkworms that have been fed fluorescent dye. But now we also have silk that has been spun by silkworms that have been genetically modified with genes from fluorescent protein-producing animals. In three different colors!

Creating the glowing silks meant borrowing from organisms that already produce fluorescent molecules. Scientists inserted the DNA sequences that produce these foreign fluorescent proteins into the silkworm genome, creating what’s called a transgenic animal. One batch got a red, glowing protein normally found in Discosoma corals; another got a glowing orange protein from the Fungia concinna coral. The third strain incorporated the green fluorescent protein derived from jellyfish.

When the silkworms started spinning, the glowing sequences turned on and produced silk in three different colors — and the colors stayed vibrant and glowing for more than two years. Scientists bred and reared more than 20,000 of these transgenic silkworms in the lab, feeding them mulberry leaves, harvesting their shimmering threads and working out how to turn the raw, glowing cocoon silk into a functional material. Because the processing steps for normal silk — such as cooking cocoons at 100 degrees Celsius — destroy fluorescent proteins, the scientists needed to find a slightly different way to produce the fabrics. In the end, they found that a combination of slightly lower temperatures, an alkaline solution, and a vacuum produced softened cocoons that could be reeled.   

Link  -via Ed Yong


(Image credit: Iizuka et al., Advanced Functional Materials)

Autobots, teleport out! Optimus Prime now has a great advantage over Megatron and the Decepticons. Andrew Lindsey used a 3D pinter to build a transforming TARDIS--a transportation choice far more mobile than a tractor trailer.

It needs a fez.

Link -via Technabob

Wasabi Candy

Are you looking to add a little spice to your candy eating life? Stop rooting around the kitchen and get the Wasabi Candy from the NeatoShop. This great tin includes 12 individually wrapped wasabi flavored candies. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Mints & Candies. 

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There's nothing better on a hot summer day than some cold homemade ice cream, in your favorite flavors. If you grew up on fluffernutter sandwiches, you'll love this recipe for fluffernutter ice cream! First you cook up a mixture that reminds me a little of peanut butter fudge, then use it in your ice cream maker and swirl in marshmallow fluff and more peanut butter. Get the complete recipe at Hipsteaders. Link -via Laughing Squid

From Mario flowers and 8-bit ties to Mario wedding invites and question mark boxes for favors, this wedding is Mario-themed through and through. Of course, there are also a few other geeky touches -for example, LEGO buttonaires. 

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Snack lovers went into a slight panic when Hostess went out of business last year, because that meant no more Twinkies. To me, it meant no more Merita bread, and I still haven't adjusted. But fear no more, Twinkies will return July 15th!

Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo bought Twinkies and other Hostess cakes for $410 million.

Apollo Global Management, founded by Leon Black, is known for buying troubled brands then selling them for a profit; its investments include fast-food chains Carl's Jr. and Hardee's. Metropoulos & Co., which has revamped then sold off brands including Chef Boyardee and Bumble Bee, also owns Pabst Brewing Co.

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The trimmed-down Hostess Brands LLC has a far less costly operating structure than the predecessor company. Some of the previous workers were hired back, but they're no longer unionized.

When Twinkies return, they will cost $3.99 for a box of ten. Other Hostess products, such as Wonder Bread, were bought by different companies. Link  -via Fark

Don't think about the consequences. Just live in the moment. Worries can wait for another day.

Link -via Pleated Jeans

Okay, we knew on one level that fruits and vegetables are still "alive," because we can grow a new plant from just a piece of celery, carrot, or potato from the produce market. But a new study throws a different light on the concept of "life," as far as plants are concerned.

A study published online today in the journal Current Biology found that store-bought cabbage, lettuce, spinach, zucchini, sweet potatoes, carrots, and blueberries respond to light-dark cycles up to about a week after harvest.

And when the produce was kept on the same light-dark cycle as a predator—cabbage looper moth caterpillars (Trichoplusia ni)—it was better able to resist attacks.

Circadian clocks tell plants when the seasons change due to variations in day length, said Janet Braam, a plant biologist at Rice University in Houston, Texas. But the clock is also critical in plant defenses against insects.

"[Plants] know when the insects eat," said Braam, who is a co-author on the recent study, "so they can prepare a defense in advance."

Thinking about this led me to wonder if scientists can take individual cells from fruit and determine whether they are still alive. And when do they really die? Two weeks in the refrigerator? When we cut them? Or when we cook or eat them? Thinking along these lines can lead to nightmares. Read more about the study at NatGeo News. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Jean-Alain Le Borgne)

It's great how this guy really looks like Frozone from The Incredibles. Of course, that's not the only great quote from this year's high school senior. Here are 20 other great quotes from yearbooks.

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This woman spotted in Thailand has a cow skull on the front of her bike and rifles mounted on the sides. But what really catches your attention is her pet bird, which alternates from riding on the bike to flying along with the woman! -via Arbroath

The Japanese design firm Taphonomy salvaged steering wheels from cars and mounted them in place of bicycle handlebars. Do you think this would make it easier or harder to ride a bicycle?

Link | Designers' Website

The star who went viral after the Bonnaroo Music Festival wasn't any of the headliners -it was the woman who danced along with them. Holly Maniatty is a sign language interpreter, a professional who works all kinds of concerts. Rap shows are a special challenge as the words fly fast and are often freestyle, wandering far from the recorded version. Maniatty holds her own interpreting on the fly, but she also does plenty of research beforehand. She talked about her first rap show, for the Beastie Boys in 2009.

To prepare for the show, Maniatty says she logged more than 100 hours of research on the Beastie Boys, memorizing their lyrics and watching past shows. Her prep work also includes researching dialectal signs to ensure accuracy and authenticity. An Atlanta rapper will use different slang than a Queens one, and ASL speakers from different regions also use different signs, so knowing how a word like guns and brother are signed in a given region is crucial for authenticity.

Signing a rap show requires more than just literal translation. Maniatty has to describe events, interpret context, and tell a story. Often, she is speaking two languages simultaneously, one with her hands and one with her mouth, as she’ll sometimes rap along with the artists as well. When a rapper recently described a run-in with Tupac, Maniatty rapped along while making the sign for hologram, so deaf fans would know the reference was to Tupac’s holographic cameo at Coachella, not some figment of the rapper's imagination.

Read more about Maniatty's work at Slate. Link -via Metafilter

When you live in Westeros, you need to ensure your little ones understand the politics involved in the realm. That's where this Game of Thrones mobile by Etsy seller LullabyMobiles would come in handy.

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Killer McFluffy Room Spray

Is your cute little kitty cat guilty of producing some not so adorable smells? Enlist the help of Killer McFluffy Room Spray from the NeatoShop. This delightful room air freshener has a highly concentrated citrus blossom and lily scent. It is perfect for the litter box and beyond. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Bed & Bath items. 

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This picture was posted at reddit with the headline "This is what happens when you let primary school kids vote on the name of an animal." Spazzie McGee was the nickname of a character in the movie School of Rock. The emu named Spazzie McGee lives in Tasmania. But he is hardly the only example of folks taking liberties when they achieve naming rights, as many of the commenters pointed out.

If you were to adopt an owl, could you think of a better name than Hootie McOwlface? Maybe. We'd like to hear it!

Apparently, Pasta Batman was later overruled by authorities. The tiger is now named Whisper.

This is what happens when students get to name their own dormitory. Fort Awesome contains 2600 beds and serves Purchase College in New York. The website doesn't say exactly how it was named, but it certainly sounds like the kind of place in which 18-year-olds would want to live. Although it's not the first place to use this name, it preceded the TV series Secret Mountain Fort Awesome by several years.  

Okay, girls, what should we name our team? Sparkle Unicorns? That's great!

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And of course, there's Mister Splashy Pants. Greenpeace staged an internet poll to name the whale in 2007, and 78% of online votes were for Mister Splashy Pants, even after fraudulent votes were thrown out. As you can see from this video, Greenpeace made its peace with the name.

Then there's Kim Kardashian, who gave birth to a baby girl last week, and named her exactly what an internet poll would have chosen: North. With no middle name. So her name is North West.

Unfortunately, your shelter of opportunity during the zombie apocalypse is a first grade classroom. The good news is that you can have basic illumination. Instructables member Mikeman4290 has a simple solution: tie and tape together three crayons with a string in the middle. This candle should last for an hour.

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Meteorologist Kristi Gordon of Global BC was just doing her job broadcasting the weather forecast when a giant spider attacked her on live TV! Luckily, she survived the incident with no lasting effects, except for global recognition on the internet. -via Viral Viral Videos