How many legs must a robot have to navigate over various obstacles in the terrain? Or does it really matter? Maybe the type of feet matter more than the number of legs. Or maybe the size of those feet are key. The Brick Experiment Channel built five different types of walking machines out of LEGO blocks and pieces, and then subjected each of them to seven different obstacles to see which design worked best. None of them had an easy time. Well, one did, but I won't tell you which one because this is a competition on video, and you may get really invested in your favorite walker robot. I will go as far as to express sympathy for the "simple 2-legged walker" because that little guy has no talent for walking whatsoever and no clue going into an obstacle. Yes, it's okay to laugh at a machine that doesn't work properly.

If you'd like to know more about these five walkers, you can see how they were built in this video. -via Metafilter

We've read about amazing dogs who can smell cancer and other human conditions, and now we know at least one person who can sniff out diagnoses like diabetes and Parkinson's disease. Joy Milne, 75-year-old Scottish woman, always knew that she had an extraordinarily sensitive sense of smell, which runs in her family. She could smell a change in her husband's scent years before he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. In a test, Milne was challenged with t-shirts worn by Parkinson's patients and by healthy controls. She only missed one, when she identified a control as a Parkinson's patient, but that volunteer was diagnosed with Parkinson's a few months later!  

Milne is now working with researchers to help isolate the substance that causes the smell that tells her of Parkinson's. Read about Milne's unusual talents that may lead to a diagnostic breakthrough at My Modern Met. -via Damn Interesting

There are certain species that can walk on the surface of water. Don't try this at home, because humans and most animals are far too heavy to even attempt it. But these insects have found their ecological niche because there are other species that don't have the same talents, and they can be eaten. These water walkers each use their own different method for moving about on the surface of water: walking, rowing, jumping, surfing, and even a sort of jet propulsion. They've developed these techniques and even specialized body parts to harness the science of fluid dynamics, meaning surface tension and capillary action, to out-maneuver whatever it is they want to eat. Yeah, there's plenty of science here to interest you, but this is also a True Facts video, so you get Ze Frank cracking jokes and making fun of these talented little creatures. There's a 65-second skippable ad at 4:56.

In Novaria di Sicilia, a neighborhood of Messina, people play an unusual sport as part of the Carnival celebrations. It's called Lancio del Mairochino.

Traditional Sports explains that residents take a wheel of the local pecorino cheese and wrap it with a 3-meter long length of twine. Then they take turns hurling the cheese down the street, using the string as a sling. The goal is to reach the bottom of the hill with as few tosses as possible.

The sport dates back to the 1600s when cheesemakers practiced the sport as a way to test the hardness of a cheese and thus its readiness for consumption.

-via Massimo

English is a weird language. It has evolved over centuries while also incorporating words from other languages until it's become fertile ground producing tons of puns. You'd think someone would try to do something about that. Well, they have. There's been a movement for hundreds of years to make English words easier by spelling them the way they are pronounced. Proponents say this would make spelling more consistent across the board, and we might even be able to drop a few of the 26 letters of the alphabet. But it doesn't really work that way.

“I attrybute my suksess in life to mi devoshun to spelyng.”      –Josh Billings

When you spell words as they are pronounced, you find that it's honestly a chore to read them. And they look funny. While serious linguists were just trying to make reading and writing easier, simplified spelling made the writer seem undereducated, to say the least. Quite a few humorists jumped onto the simplified spelling bandwagon as a means of comedy, including Mark Twain. Read about the comedy backlash to the simplified spelling movement and the giggles they produced at LitHub. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Cbaile19)

The What If? series from Randall Munroe and Henry Reich (previously at Neatorama) seeks to give serious answers to ridiculous theoretical questions. The most common question they receive, over and over, is "What would happen if the sun went out?" This is also a common question outside of the series, too. What they are actually asking is how long would it be before we all froze to death. The answer varies, because humans know how to keep warm up to a point. But we would lose our light, our food supplies, and pretty soon our orbit. Since those scenarios have been addressed all around the internet, Munroe and Reich decided to look at the bright side, as if there is one. The lack of a sun would actually solve some problems we have here on earth. Not that any of that makes up for freezing to death, but here you are anyway with a list of benefits from the sun ceasing to burn.

If you knew nothing about the invention of Graham crackers, you might assume that they were invented by someone named Graham- and you'd be right. Sylvester Graham was born in 1794, the youngest of 17 children. He was sickly all of his life, and had an idea that white bread, with its refined flour, extra ingredients, and preservatives, was not good for one's health. And so Graham developed a cracker that used only simple ingredients, including whole wheat bran. This Graham cracker didn't even have any sweeteners in it. It was part of a healthy living regimen that became known as the Graham Diet.

We now know that whole grains and fewer preservatives are healthier overall. But physical health wasn't Graham's main concern. He was a Presbyterian minister who believed that alcohol was ruination, and food that contained meat, fat, or spices promoted lustful thoughts and sexual perversion. Only a simple, bland diet would put the proper limits on such desires. These beliefs didn't appeal to the general public, and indeed, Graham crackers only became a sensation when Nabisco started putting honey in them. Read about Sylvester Graham and his quest for better morals and better health at All That's Interesting. -Thanks, WTM!

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

The colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamilton), we are informed by the conservation organization Oceana, is the largest invertebrate on Earth. They can measure as long as 46 feet and weigh 1,100 pounds.

The colossal squid is elusive and a challenging encounter for humans, as it lives in very deep oceanic waters. It was only recently, Scientific American reports, that scientists were able to record video footage of one. A robot launched from the research vessel Falkor found a juvenile colossal squid near the South Sandwich Islands, which are in the far southern Atlantic Ocean. This particular squid is only a foot long.

-via Dave Barry

Weird Universe tells us that in 1932, the Lincoln Electric Company (which is apparently still in business) conducted a national essay writing competition about arc welding. The winners received a total of $17,500 in prize money that was distributed on checks. Those checks didn't bounce--perhaps because they were made of steel.

The first prize went to two naval officers named Homer N. Wallin and Henry A. Schade who later achieved fame for their naval engineering work during World War II. Their check measured two feet long and was inscribed with a blowtorch. They endorsed on the back in the same fashion. The bank marked the check as cleared by shooting bullet holes through it.

Photo: Smithsonian Institution

The Golden Girls went off the air in 1992 after seven seasons. The last of our for favorite ladies departed for that great lanai in the sky just over two years ago. But the fanbase for the show remains profoundly strong, perhaps because each of the four women spoke from a core facet of the human experience.

There is now even a murder mystery novel set in The Golden Girls universe. Rachel Ekstrom Courage, a seasoned YA author, wrote Murder by Cheesecake. In it, Dorothy goes on a date with a man, who promptly ends up dead. She and her three friends must find the killer.

-via Chance the Librarian

The Western movie Tombstone came out in 1993 and therefore never got an Honest Trailer until now. With the passing of Val Kilmer a couple of weeks ago, a lot of people are thinking about his portrayal of Doc Holliday in the movie, so it seems fitting that Tombstone can finally get an Honest Trailer.

There have been plenty of movies that told the story of Wyatt Earp and the gunfight at the OK Corral, including one of that exact title, because it's an exciting Old West tale that happens to be true. But Tombstone stands out among those movies for assembling a large cast of talented and attractive actors, moments that are less serious and even lean toward comedy, and for its historical accuracy, which is, of course, relative to other productions. Screen Junkies can't find much to criticize Tombstone for, but they do manage to shoehorn some jokes into this Honest Trailer.

Last month, we brought you a video about murderers who had been featured on television for something besides murder. That was not exactly a complete list. It's happened in the movies, too, when those involved in the production only found out much later that they'd been working with a murderer. Sometimes the murder came after the movie job, and sometimes they'd already committed the crime and just hadn't been caught yet. This happened to the cast of The Exorcist, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Felon. Plus there are two cases of a murderer on a TV series that didn't show up in the earlier video. One is about a Jeopardy! winner who went on to kill his wife, and the last case is a real mind blower- the murders happened to produce content for the television show! That complicated story and four others are all explained in a list at Cracked.

This shrimp is a go-getter! Watch him do all the things you wish you had time to do in a day -in only a minute. He gets up early so he can get his exercise, sports, and gaming in before he even fixes breakfast and then goes to work making other creative things. Afterward, downtime is party time with his shrimp friends! It's a full day, for sure, so I bet he doesn't get up quite so early the next morning.

This series of shrimp activities are all automata made by  Amedeo Capelli of Stoccafisso design (previously at Neatorama). Shrimp are far from the only thing he animates in wood, but he has quite a few of the little crustaceans in his collection of clever and whimsical automata. And they do all the things! Some of these shrimp (and other automata) are available at his Etsy shop. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The influencer appropriately named Kate Will Try Anything is willing to try any sort of daring culinary experiment. Think of her as the Galileo Galilei of food research.

In this video, Kate shows us how to ensure that we have enough Easter eggs for this weekend. A toilet bowl has sufficient size for the batch that the kids will need. She adds boiled eggs, vinegar, dye, and baking soda. Then she scrubs the toilet clean so that it's ready for its regular use.

It may be a good idea to similarly clean the unit prior to dying your eggs, too.

-via Dave Barry

Rebecca Gardner is a professional event planner, interior designer, and fashion mogul who operates at a high level. Her elite parties and luxurious accessories are highly esteemed by our social betters.

Gardner's shop includes unique items, such as hats that look like Easter baskets, a carrot that dangles on the end of a stick just in case you need that sort of thing, and candles that look like banana splits.

What rivted Messy Nessy Chic's attention is this adorable hat that looks like a radish. Elite milliner Maor Sabar made this ravishing chapeau. Wearing it this Easter will cost you a mere $898.