Sunglasses Sleeping Mask 

Wear your sunglasses at night with the Sunglasses Sleeping Mask from the NeatoShop. So you can, so you can block the light that's right before your eyes. 

The Sunglasses Sleeping Mask is so cute it almost makes you want to break into song. The mask is available in 6 different color combinations. Collect them!

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

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Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Sleep Masks. 

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Let us bury her as we found her. Faustine Gau's coffin (that is, she made the coffin and is not necessarily buried in it) follows the iconic form of a body outline at a crime scene.

Link -via Ian Brooks

(YouTube link)

This is supposedly a North Korean propaganda film showing how Americans live. It's too bad we have eaten all the birds, but there is plenty of snow to eat and make coffee with. We are thankful for the North Koreans, who donate fabric to the Red Cross so we can have walls and hand out cakes to our senior citizens. The watermark on the footage leads to the website v.ifeng.com. Any insights from those who can read Korean will be appraciated. -via Digg

Lamps aren't born. They're built. This lamp of unknown provenance will illuminate your desk work space or annihilate it, depending on the setting that you use. You can view more photos at the link.

Link -via Technabob

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, were the first pilots to have a successful manned flight, when they flew their airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December of 1903. Although many believe the Wright brothers flew together in a plane that historic day, this is untrue. It was brother Orville who flew aloft for 12 seconds that day and proved that man, indeed, could fly. But Orville Wright holds another flying record. He was the pilot of the first flight in history where a passenger died.

Orville Wright demonstrates the plane over Fort Myer, Virginia.

By 1908, five years after the legendary flight, the Wright brothers were traveling all over the United States and Europe demonstrating their fabulous flying machine. Everything went well -until September of 1908. That was when Orville Wright was giving demonstrations of flight at Fort Myer, Virginia.

The U.S. Army was interested in purchasing the Wright brothers' aircraft and using it as a military plane. It was the job of the younger Wright brother to show how safe and practical their plane, "the Flyer," was. Orville Wright had done this before.  

On September 10th, he took the first official passenger, Lieutenant Frank D. Lahm up successfully. Two days later, Orville flew Major George O. Squier around for nine minutes. If these first two flights went swimmingly, the next was to be a catastrophe.

Thomas Selfridge and Orville Wright before takeoff.

It was on September 17, 1908, that Orville Wright took 26-year-old Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge up for another demonstration. A cheering crowd of 2,000 gathered to witness the flight. Selfridge waved to the crowd as the plane took off. Selfridge was the heaviest passenger yet, weighing in at 175 pounds.

Wright flew three laps over the parade ground at approximately 150 feet when he heard a tapping on the plane. Then two big bumps were heard and the plane began shaking. Wright tried turning off the engines and hoped to glide to the ground safely. Then he heard something fall off the plane (it was later discovered to be one of the plane's propellors). The plane wouldn't respond to steering.

Selfridge kept looking at Wright to see how he was reacting. As the plane fell to the height of 75 feet, Selfridge let out an almost inaudible "Oh-oh!" The plane crashed into the ground hard and left a huge cloud of dust.

Orville Wright was disentangled from the crash first. He was bloody but conscious. Thomas Selfridge wasn't so lucky. When he was finally dislodged from the wreckage, he was bloody and unconscious. He was never to regain consciousness.

Both men were rushed to the nearby hospital on stretchers. Selfridge was operated on that night, but he died of a fractured skull. He was the first person ever to die in a plane crash. Selfridge was buried with military honors at Arlington National cemetery.

Orville Wright had escaped death, but he did have a broken leg, several broken ribs, cuts on his head, and several bruises. He was released from the hospital on October 31st. Although he was to walk and fly again, he suffered pain from his fractured hip of the rest of his life.

Wilbur Wright died in 1912. But younger brother Orville survived until 1948, a full forty years after piloting the first fatal plane crash.

Where does Bigfoot come from? What does he do with his time? Ask a silly question… and someone will come up with an answer. For example:

4. Bigfoot is really an alien.
Two conspiracies for the price of one! In 1973, Pennsylvanian UFO researcher Stan Gordon said he noticed an increase in sightings of Sasquatches entering and exiting extraterrestrial vessels. Fascinated by the possibility that the mysterious primates may actually hail from another planet, Gordon quickly set up a "UFO-Bigfoot Hotline" that still runs to this day.

5. Bigfoot is really a giant ground sloth.
While most "experts" believe the Sasquatch to be some form of shaggy primate, a few have opined that these beasts are actually surviving giant ground sloths. For more on these fascinating prehistoric mammals, do go here.

Possibly the craziest thing about these theories is that they all require the belief that Sasquatch is real. Read all 11 at The Week. Link

(Image credit: Nathan Mazur/The NeatoShop)

(Video Link)

This is the most amazing thing I've seen all day! Stop and watch this video right now. Brusspup, maker of astounding optical illusions, let water flow past a speaker set to a particular frequency:

Run the rubber hose down past the speaker so that the hose touches the speaker. Leave about 1 or 2 inches of the hose hanging past the bottom of the speaker. Secure the hose to the speaker with tape or whatever works best for you. The goal is to make sure the hose is touching the actual speaker so that when the speaker produces sound (vibrates) it will vibrate the hose.

Set up your camera and switch it to 24 fps. The higher the shutter speed the better the results. But also keep in the mind that the higher your shutter speed, the more light you need. Run an audio cable from your computer to the speaker. Set your tone generating software to 24hz and hit play.Turn on the water. Now look through the camera and watch the magic begin. If you want the water to look like it's moving backward set the frequency to 23hz. If you want to look like it's moving forward in slow motion set it to 25hz.

-via Colossal

Photographer Fabian Oefner (previously at Neatorama) has a new series of works called Black Hole.

"Black Hole" is a series of images, which shows paint modeled by centripetal force. The setup is very simple: Various shades of acrylic paint are dripped onto a metallic rod, which is connected to a drill. When switched on, the paint starts to move away from the rod, creating these amazing looking structures.

The motion of the paint happens in a blink of an eye, the images you see are taken only millisecond after the drill was turned on.

This picture shows what it looks like from an angle. You can see the other images, plus a video of the process, at Oefner's Behance gallery. Link -via Twisted Sifter

Foodbeast's Kiera Wright-Ruiz ruthlessly hunted down and rounded up scrumptious ways that you can use Peeps, the classic Easter marshmallow candy. This temptation is a Peep s'more. At the link, you can also discover Peep cocktails, Peep monkey bread, Peep Rice Krispie treats and more.

Link | Photo: Live, Love, Pasta

Why settle for those boring "My Family" stick figure vinyl stickers when you can have zombies? Check out the My Zombie Family Car Stickers (with the extended undead family version), as designed by our pal Adam Koford.

My Zombie Family Car Stickers | also available on Amazon

My Zombie Family Series 2 | also available on Amazon

Zombies not your thing? Check out more selection of My Family Stickers from the NeatoShop:

My Cyptozoological Family (Amazon)	My Monster Family (Amazon)	My Baseball Family	My Football Family

View more My Family Stickers

(YouTube link)

In this installment of the ongoing series Epic Rap Battles of History, we have a matchup that we've discussed a few times here at Neatorama. Thomas Edison, the wizard of Menlo Park, ended up in the history books as the inventor of the light bulb and many other gadgets that make modern life what it is. Nikola Tesla's amazing research into electricity has only seeped into the general puclic' consciousness in the last couple of decades, and some folks are working hard to see that he eventually gets his due for the work he did. -via Viral Viral Videos

Pink Butterfly Schwings Lace-Up

Are you looking to give a little lift to your favorite pair of tennis shoes? You need a pair of the Pink Butterfly Schwings Lace-Ups from the NeatoShop. This fabulous shoe accessory makes it looks like your shoe is wearing a pair of butterfly wings. One pair of wings is included in each set.    

Orange Butterfly Shwings Lace-Up also available. Buy both and watch your style really take flight.  

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Apparel & Accessories and even more great Schwings styles. 

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Theron Humphrey's photography project is simple but beautiful. His rescued shelter dog, Maddie the Coonhound, stands on objects. Humphrey snaps the picture.

Sometimes, though, Maddie needs a rest. Here she is lying comfortably in her case at the South by Southwest music festival.

Link -via Lustik

The A.V. Club discusses the new movie A Talking Cat!?! just released on video, featuring Eric Roberts as the voice of Duffy, a talking cat. The article first discusses the career arc of Roberts (Julia Roberts' older brother) who cranks out dozens of independent films every year. The review of the direct-to-video feature A Talking Cat!?! compares it to The Room for plain awfulness, which only makes me want to rent it to see how long I can watch it. The review is most likely more entertaining. Spoilers ahead.

It’s not enough for a character to say he’s driving somewhere. No, we need to follow a single boring car on an unexceptional road all the way from its start to its destination, with nothing remotely non-tedious occurring along the way. I suppose that I should just be happy this isn’t occurring in real time and that there isn’t a half hour of Whitaker driving cautiously on an empty road to his destination.

Then again, Cat has about 12 minutes’ worth of plot, so it has to dole it out sparingly. Duffy acts as something of a feline Amelie who uses his magical powers of speech and his gifts as a “human whisperer” to set up the pouty teenaged boy with the obnoxious girl he’s tutoring in English. A Talking Cat?!? inspires so little sympathy for its characters, human or otherwise, that when Duffy gets hit by a car in the third act, I was actually rooting for his death, and I say that as an inveterate cat lover. But astonishingly, the worst and craziest is yet to come.

After Duffy is hit by a car, he hovers close to death, Dannas conveniently remembers what Duffy told him about the magical collar under the magical tree in the magical forest. They slap the magical collar on Duffy and through the magic of terrible, terrible special effects, Duffy roars back to life in time for a film-wide happy ending. Reportedly, A Talking Cat?!? cost $1 million, which makes me wonder where the other $990,000 went. It sure as shit isn’t on the screen.

This sounds like it might be a contender for the Golden Turkey Awards, if it ever gets seen by anyone. The review has a couple of clips you do not want to miss. Link -via Metafilter

Here's further proof that Grumpy Cat has entered into our society's consciousness. He's now at the grocery store! Via Accordion Guy

This math equation has been passed around on Facebook precisely because people argue about it. Having not taken a math class in 40 years or so, I only got halfway through it before I became stuck. Sure, if it were a mortgage amortization or a sale on beans, I would be able to figure out what I want to know, but the way problems are presented in math class are beyond my long-term memory. The problem is in the way it is written. Tara Haelle at Slate explains:

Some of you are already insisting in your head that 6 ÷ 2(1+2) has only one right answer, but hear me out. The problem isn’t the mathematical operations. It’s knowing what operations the author of the problem wants you to do, and in what order. Simple, right? We use an “order of operations” rule we memorized in childhood: “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally,” or PEMDAS, which stands for Parentheses Exponents Multiplication Division Addition Subtraction.* This handy acronym should settle any debate—except it doesn’t, because it’s not a rule at all. It’s a convention, a customary way of doing things we’ve developed only recently, and like other customs, it has evolved over time. (And even math teachers argue over order of operations.)

POLL: What is the answer to the pictured equation?

• one
• nine
• neither one nor nine
• I don't know; I just want to see the poll results.

(YouTube link)

SpaceX continues to make progress in private space exploration. Their vehicle called Grasshopper took off, and then landed straight up! It looks like special effects from a movie. The demonstration proves that a rocket can land intact.

On Thursday, March 7, 2013, SpaceX’s Grasshopper doubled its highest leap to date to rise 24 stories or 80.1 meters (262.8 feet), hovering for approximately 34 seconds and landing safely using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control. Grasshopper touched down with its most accurate precision thus far on the centermost part of the launch pad. At touchdown, the thrust to weight ratio of the vehicle was greater than one, proving a key landing algorithm for Falcon 9. The test was completed at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas.

Link  -via Laughing Squid

It's been almost twelve years since Douglas Adams thanked us for the fish and wished us farewell. Had he lived, yesterday would have been the 61st birthday of the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Monica Holbert marked the occasion by making these cookies.

Remember that May 25th is Towel Day. On that day, carry a towel everywhere you go so that you're always prepared for an unexpected interstellar journey.

Link | Baker's Website

The bad news is that Seattle has been destroyed and civilization is in ruins. The good news is that you've survived - and thanks to local artist Tony Dowler, you know where not to go in post-apocalyptic Seattle.

Tony has drawn the Seattle Doomsday Map (and a book called "Dee Dee's Doomsday Guide to Seattle"), in which he reimagined The Emerald City after the Apocalypse.

From Tony's Year of the Dungeon blog:

Post Seattle: South Lake Union

Wild dogs and dangerous vagrants here. even the good scrounge’s been picked over.

Some smart geeks’ve set up a pig farm on a rooftop, though. Use the shit to run their generators and grow things hydroponic style. If you send some useful scrap up to them, they might just send down some hothouse cabbages.

There's a scrounger's den on Denny street. Look for the yellow flags. Climb in the third basement window on the left and secure it behind yourself. If you take something from the stash make sure you leave something in return.

Post Seattle: Denny Hill

Lots of people in Denny, but they aren’t folk. A few rival gangs, so don’t get caught wearing the wrong color. I opt for black. Still, you can find copper wire, electronics, and supplies if you know where to look.

One of the gangs here has a secret stash of clean water and lords it over the rest of them. Another gang has a scrounge racket trading in working car batteries. Another one collects ears, so know who you’re dealing with.

Check out more at Tony's blog: Link - via Mighty Mega

The Yitzhak Rabin High School in Kfar Saba, Israel, collected information from teachers on junior class students, supposedly to identify troublemakers ahead of a field trip to Poland. The teacher collating the information on a spreadsheet accidentally emailed the internal document to the students who signed up for the trip.

Though some students were described as "pleasant" and "quiet," many others were given insulting labels such as "big baby," "sicko," and "not too bright."

One student was said to "have a voice like a 4-year-old girl," while another was flagged for having "a thing" for boys.

Students showed up at the school this morning with their individual put-downs taped to their shirts.

One of the students who found themselves on the infamous spreadsheet said she would have a hard time looking her teachers in the eye after this. "We are very angry," she told YNet.  

Israel's Ministry of Education is launching an investigation into the incident. Link  -via Daily of the Day

We love the work of Hong Yi, an artist who "likes to paint, but not with a paintbrush." For her latest project, she's creating images with her food, one each day for the month of March. You can view them all at her Instagram feed.

Hong Yi's Instagram Feed -via Foodiggity

Enterprise and Klingon Ship Salt & Pepper Shakers

Are the odds against your home decor? Is the situation grim? The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination. All you really need is to take your kitchen table to a place it has never gone before the Enterprise and Klingon Ship Salt & Pepper Shakers from the NeatoShop. This fascinating set is held together with magnets.      

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Salt and Pepper Shakers and fantastic Star Trek items. 

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Photo: Kyodo News/AP

Two years ago, the 2011 tsunami killed over 19,000 people and devastated many more lives. In the city of Rikuzentakata, the tsunami ripped apart over 70,000 pine trees along the coast ... but one survived.

The Miracle Pine, before the tsunami - via Rikuzentakata City FB page

Photo: Kyodo News/AP - via NBC News Photoblog

A lone tree, since named the Miracle Pine, rose from the rubbles, symbolizing the hope of the nation. But the seawater had irreversibly damaged the tree's roots and it was dying.

At the end of the day, the city decided to cut the tree down and dissected its branches in order to preserve it against decay. The tree is being reassembled on a carbon spine and will be reborn as a monument to commemorate the victims of the disaster.

For centuries, the pine trees of Rikuzentakata has protected the city from harsh winds. The city has finally returned the favor by preserving the last, defiant tree.

(Photo: Warren Antiola/Flickr)

Via designboom

(Image credit: Flickr user Frank Wuestefeld)

You're sitting on a bus. The kid next to you has a helium-filled balloon and it ends up against the ceiling, just about in the center of the bus. The driver suddenly hits the gas pedal and the bus lurches forward, throwing you back into your seat. What does the balloon do?

a. It moves backwards.
b. It moves forward.
c. It stays where it is.

Continue reading for the correct answer.

The answer is (highlight): b. It moves forward. When the bus moves forward, the heavier air moves to the back of the bus. The helium balloon is lighter than air, so it is pushed forward. Give it try yourself sometime!

___________________

This brainteaser was reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Unstoppable Bathroom Reader.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

(Video Link)

Cat, I've been there and I sympathize. But, really, you should have seen this coming.

-via Yababoon

Researchers at King's College London were able to grow teeth from human epithelial cells taken from gums. They grew these teeth in the mouths of mice, which is a long way from growing them in humans, so don't expect to regrow your teeth if you're already on the way to losing them.  

In the latest study they took human epithelial cells from the gums of human patients, grew more of them in the lab and mixed them with mesenchyme cells from mice.

The mesenchyme cells were cultured to be "inducing" - they instruct the epithelial cells to start growing into a tooth.

Transplanting the cell combination into mice, researchers were able to grow hybrid human/mouse teeth that had viable roots, they reported in the Journal of Dental Research.

Unfortunately, we don't yet have a photograph of a mouse flashing his toothy hybrid mouse-human smile. Link -via Gizmodo

(Image credit: Journal of Dental Research)

Well, how about a Mindstorm kit, Tard? You'll have a bit more variety then. LEGO artist Iain Heath writes:

Tardar Sauce is all over the internet and TV at the moment. And might just become Pope!

But you're not a proper meme until you've been LEGO-ized, right?

SO THIS MAKES IT OFFICIAL.

Link -via Blame It on the Voices

(YouTube link)

Making a music video for your upcoming bar mitzvah is becoming a thing, but this one stands out from the crowd. Jorel is turning 13, and he will become a man next month. If the party is anything like the Queen-themed save-the-date video, it will be rockin'! -via Viral Viral Videos

Wait, why are you walking away? I haven't even described it to you yet! Come back here and listen.

Remember the bold words of Captain Kirk: "Risk is our business." Do you want to live a quiet, sedentary life or one of daring culinary adventures? The latter, of course. That's why Nick of DudeFoods has the perfect cheeseburger for you. Its bread cheese, beef, Brunkow cheese and bacon give you a 4,300 calorie exploit that your descendants will talk about for generations.

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