Photographer Nordin Seruyan captured this amazing photo of a frog hitching a ride on a snail. Hope he's not going anywhere soon, that's one sweet but sloooooow ride! View it over at 500px: Link - via Twisted Sifter's FB page
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There's Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, and of course, Florida Man. Florida Man is in the news constantly, with headlines enshrined in a Twitter feed dedicated to "the world's worst superhero." Link -via Metafilter
We've seen wild animals caught on camera traps, and we've seen kittens see their first mirror image. But now we've got a pair of curious young leopards encountering a large mirror on the side of an empty road near Nyonié in Gabon. This sequence was edited down from a 20-minute encounter. French videographer Xavier HUBERT-BRIERRE set up 29 camera traps, but unfortunately is having a hard time getting repair work done on those the animals have damaged. Metafilter has links to his other wildlife videos. Link
You've got to admit. Classical music station WRR 101.1 FM's van is too hot to Handel. Via Are We Having Pun Yet?
Surely this is Darth Vader's favorite candy, despite the difficulty of licking them through his mask. Priscilla of Designer Lollipops makes lollipops by hand in the shape of the Death Star from Star Wars! They are made from Isomalt, sugar, and corn syrup and taste like marshmallows, and available through her Etsy shop. Link -via Laughing Squid
(Image credit: Designer Lollipops)
The Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research in Timbuktu, Mali, holds a collection of 30,000 of the world's most precious ancient manuscripts. Or it did until recently. On January 23rd, al-Qaida-linked extremists, who invaded Timbuktu almost a year ago, ransacked the library and set it on fire. The fire raged for eight days straight. What the extremists did not know was that only about 2,000 of the hand-written documents had been moved to the new library building.
However, they didn't bother searching the old building, where an elderly man named Abba Alhadi has spent 40 of his 72 years on earth taking care of rare manuscripts. The illiterate old man, who walks with a cane and looks like a character from the Bible, was the perfect foil for the Islamists. They wrongly assumed that the city's European-educated elite would be the ones trying to save the manuscripts, he said.
So last August, Alhadi began stuffing the thousands of books into empty rice and millet sacks.
At night, he loaded the millet sacks onto the type of trolley used to cart boxes of vegetables to the market. He pushed them across town and piled them into a lorry and onto the backs of motorcycles, which drove them to the banks of the Niger River.
From there, they floated down to the central Malian town of Mopti in a pinasse, a narrow, canoe-like boat. Then cars drove them from Mopti, the first government-controlled town, to Mali's capital, Bamako, over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from here.
"I have spent my life protecting these manuscripts. This has been my life's work. And I had to come to terms with the fact that I could no longer protect them here," said Alhadi. "It hurt me deeply to see them go, but I took strength knowing that they were being sent to a safe place."
It took two weeks in all to spirit out the bulk of the collection, around 28,000 texts housed in the old building covering the subjects of theology, astronomy, geography and more.
The 2,000 documents that were in the new library were digitized, so the information survives even if the parchment does not. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: AP/Harouna Traore)
Oh, isn't that romantic! A great math pickup line made into a valentine. This one is for sale from the Etsy shop Inspiration Move Me Brightly. Geeks Are Sexy has a lot more in a roundup of geeky valentines gleaned from various Etsy shops. Which do you like best? Link
The Hamburglar was a classy guy, all right ...in his own way! This Twaggie was illustrated by Josh at Formal Sweatpants from a Tweet by @RorynotRoy. Check out all the new illustrated Tweets at Twaggies! Link
If it moves and it shouldn't use duct tape. If it should move but doesn't, use WD-40. Consider your problem solved! Via +JD Rucker
The cake was pretty fancy on the outside, but it made everyone's eyes pop when they cut it! This polka dot cake was made by redditor reburn's wife for their daughter's birthday. The secret? Make cake pops first, then bake the rest of the cake around them. Here's a tutorial on the process. Link
Sloths can swim! In fact, they can move through the water three times faster than they move on land. That really isn't saying much, so people still rescue "drowning" sloths. The sloths are probably complaining constantly about this misguided altruism, but as they complain so slowly, no one pays attention. -via Arbroath
There's nothing better than a good math pun, especially when you don't have to thoroughly understand the math to get it. The Fourier Transform is named that in honor of French mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier. If that's not a case of nominative determinism, I don't know what is! From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Link -via 22 Words
Zip the border collie had five canine agility championship titles before a hit and run driver left her paraplegic. She spent two week in ICU and several months in therapy, and was fitted with all-terrain wheels to get around.
After being away from agility for 7 months, we went to a trial far from home to see how Zip would react to being at a trial but not entered. She played tug ringside and barked at her brother when he ran. That part hadn’t changed. Then one day I brought her to agility practice. It was too hot to leave her in the car so my husband put her on a mat near the field. Suddenly Zip appeared at the base of the AF. She’d crawled 60 feet from her mat; she wanted to play agility. A friend and my husband decided to put the bars down on the course and I was handed a leash attached to Zip’s wheelchair. They said, “Run her.” I had reservations but Zip was gleefully barking by this time. We ran and she did great. She now practices all the time. The Five Flags Dog Training Club in Pensacola held a Glory Run for Retired Agility Dogs on December 3, 2011. The small entry fee was donated to the “Chase Away Canine Cancer” organization.
Even though the bars are removed from the jumps, notice how Zip "jumps" with her front legs anyway. That's a good dog! Link -via Buzzfeed
Is there intelligent life in TV's outer space? You decide.
"Is there anyone on this ship, who, even remotely, looks like Satan?" -Kirk
Tuvok: "The phaser beam would ricochet along an unpredictable path, possibly impacting our ship in the process."
Janeway: "All right, we won't try that."
"Mr. Spock, the women in your planet are logical. That's the only planet in the galaxy that can make that claim." -Kirk
"I'm a doctor, not an escalator." -McCoy
"I must say, there's nothing like the vacuum of space for preserving a handsome corpse." -Doctor
"I'm attempting to construct a mnemonic memory circuit, using stone knives and bearskins." -Spock
"The best diplomat I know is a fully-loaded phaser bank." -Scotty
"Mr. Neelix, do you think you could possibly behave a little less like yourself?" -Tuvok
"What am I, a doctor or a moon shuttle conductor?" -McCoy
"Time travel, from my first day on the job I promised myself I'd never let myself get caught up in one of those God-forsaken paradoxes. The future is the past; the past is the future. It all gives me a headache." -Janeway
"It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent." -Q
Data: "Tell me, are you using a polymer-based neuro-relay to transmit organic nerve impulses to the central processor of my positronic net?"
Borg Queen: "Do you always talk this much?"
"The weak innocents …they always seem to be located on the natural invasion routes." -Kirk
"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer." -McCoy
These quotes reminded me of a video. Continue reading to see it.
Photo: Andreas Praefcke/Wikipedia
Mustache and soup don't mix (especially when the custom of the day is to wax one's 'stache), so what's a moustachioed Victorian gentleman to do? Well, they eat soup with Moustache Spoon.
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