There are hundreds of motorcycle clubs in the US, most of which never make more than local headlines for charity work. Then there are the “one percenters”, the gangs whose criminal activities set a poor reputation for all bikers. Listverse will familiarize you with the biggest of these outlaw gangs. Link -via Gorilla Mask

The first Saturday in August is National Mustard Day, sponsored and promoted by the National Mustard Museum. The celebration tomorrow will be in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, but afterwards the museum will move to its new home in Middleton, 18 miles away.

For the final time, people will gather here Saturday on two closed-off blocks of Main Street to celebrate National Mustard Day. There will be free hotdogs with mustard — there's a $10 surcharge for those who dare to request ketchup — mustard painting and music by the Poupon U Accordion Band.

The Mustard Museum draws up to 30,000 visitors a year. Link to story. Link to Mustard Day website. -via J-Walk Blog

Robots that served in Afghanistan by remotely detonating explosives are now repurposed as "firebots" in London. These machines can safely get much closer to the source of the fire than human firefighters, which is particularly useful for gas fires.

The three robots are the Talon, a small, manoeuvrable machine with thermal-image cameras; the Black Max, which is similar to a quad bike and has a high-pressure hose, and the Brokk 90, which is a heavy-duty digger that removes debris.

The robots, manufactured by QinetiQ, went into service in London yesterday. Link -via Unique Daily

National Geographic takes on conspiracy theorists over the Apollo moon landing. Each accusation is countered by spaceflight historian Roger Launius of the Smithsonian Institution or astronomer Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Blog.

You can tell Apollo was faked because ... only two astronauts walked on the moon at a time, yet in photographs such as this one where both are visible, there is no sign of a camera. So who took the picture?

The fact of the matter is ... the cameras were mounted to the astronauts' chests, said astronomer Phil Plait, author of the award-winning blog Bad Astronomy and president of the James Randi Educational Foundation.

In the picture above, Plait notes, "you can see [Neil's] arms are sort of at his chest. That's where the camera is. He wasn't holding it up to his visor."

Link

A study by Mile End Centre for Sports and Exercise Medicine in the Whitechapel area of London, England asked 11- and 12-year-olds to wear pedometers to measure their activity. Researchers were surprised to find that the more obese children registered the highest activity levels. Then they found out why. The participants were attaching the pedometers to their dogs!

Once adjusted to take into account the help from pets, the study indicated that boys in the borough walk or run 12,620 steps a day, below the recommended level of 15,000 steps.

It also found that girls take 10,150 steps, falling short of the recommended 12,000 steps.

It indicated that more than a third of 11 and 12-year-olds in the borough of Tower Hamlets are overweight or obese - 11% higher than the national average.

Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Flickr user size8jeans)

I live in a house that is over 100 years old. That's pretty old by US standards, but can you imagine living in a city that is 12,000 years old? That would be Damascus, Syria, with a population of four million people. Web Urbanist has a list of the ten oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. Link

Cultural differences call for different food, so when a food company like McDonalds goes global, the menu items in other countries can seem a bit strange to Americans. Hot dogs or pasta for breakfast? McSpaghetti? Banana Pie? Available at McDonalds in Asia. Beer is served in Germany and France. In Canada, McDonalds has grilled cheese sandwiches and poutine on the menu. Shown is a Kiwiburger from the New Zealand menu, which has egg and beetroot in addition to beef. Link -via Cynical-C

A hippopotamus in Alkmaar, South Africa was desperate for a dip to escape the heat, and climbed over ten foot walls to bathe in a water tower! Once in, he couldn't get out on his own. A farm worker spotted him -or rather, spotted two big nostrils poking out of the water.

Equipped with a hydraulic crane and a cage, hippo hunter Chris Hobkirk and his team from the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Association set to work. In a four-hour operation, they drained the tank and used poles to gently nudge the hippo into the 3m-long (10ft) steel cage before winching it to safety.

Mr Hobkirk – who has rescued more than 180 stranded hippos in the past six years – said it was a tricky procedure but he was glad with the outcome.

'Maybe we got lucky with this one. In the past, I have removed hippos from small dams. In those cases, the water levels have always been much lower so this was different.'

Link -via Arbroath

Taking public transportation is good for the environment, but used-up Metrocards aren't -unless you find something useful to do with them. The Infrastructurist found nine wacky things people have made out of the cards, including this lovely suit. http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/06/26/how-arts-and-crafts-can-save-the-planet-10-creative-uses-for-your-dead-metrocards/ -via Everlasting Blort

The Bay Area R2 Builders showed off four fully-functioning R2D2 units at Maker Faire. They cost around $10,000 to build, and take a couple of years of work. http://www.wired.com/video/builders-construct-10000-fully-functional-r2d2/24892334001 to video report. Link to website.

You read about fast foods of Europe and Asia and Australia, now in the third part of the series, HealthAssist takes a look at fast food from South and Central America. For example, in Panama:

Fondas are one of the most popular places to grab a meal on the go. These small kiosk-type restaurants serve their food from glass boxes heated by a light bulb. Most, if not all of the food served in fondas are fried - rice, hojaldres, pork chunks, empanadas. Fondas also serve a soup called sancocho. Sancocho is a type of chicken soup flavoured with onion and cilantro.

Link -Thanks, Karen!

A new procedure to help people with damaged corneas is showing promise in three patients so far. A team from the University of New South Wales in Sydney takes stem cells from the patient's good eye and cultures them in a contact lens. When the cells have multiplied, they place the lens over the patient's affected eye and leave it for around three weeks. During that time, the cells begin to grow into the damaged cornea and help regenerate it. In effect, it's a stem cell transplant from one eye to the other.

Researcher Dr Nick Di Girolamo said: 'The procedure is totally simple and cheap.

'Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient’s own serum, and is completely non-invasive.

'There's no suturing, there is no major operation. You don’t need any fancy equipment.'

The contact lenses used in the operation are already widely used after eye surgery.

The researchers hope the technique can be adapted for other parts of the eye, such as the retina, and even elsewhere in the body.

Link -via Digg

If you are one who is willing to suffer for fashion, you might have a pair or two of the stylish "skinny jeans". If so, you need to know about meralgia paresthetica, or “tingling thigh syndrome.” It feels as if your legs have gone to sleep, or it may cause a burning or tingling sensation. The syndrome is caused by pressure on the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.

“The nerve, in some people, is susceptible to compression,” says Dr. John England, a New Orleans neurologist and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. The femoral cutaneous nerve, he explains, runs from the outside of the pelvis and through the thigh. “It is a pure sensory nerve — it doesn’t go to muscles or provide strength. Anything that is tight around there could potentially compress the nerve that goes there.”

The situation is exacerbated if you are also wearing high heels. It's almost always a temporary condition. Just remove the jeans and the nerve will regenerate. Link -via Buzzfeed

Wildlife officials are expecting this kangaroo, found shot through the head by a crossbow arrow, to fully recover. The roo was found last Thursday at a park in suburban Melbourne. It's possible that he may have been shot up to a week before being found. He has since been under the care of veterinarians at the Melbourne Zoo.

Wildlife Victoria has posted a Aus$10,000 ( US$7,600, £5,000) reward to find the person responsible.

Wildlife Victoria spokeswoman Fiona Corke, said the kangaroo was rescued just days after another kangaroo was found with an arrow in its rump in the same area.

"It's just unbelievable, I can't believe that anyone would do something so cruel," she said.

Link -via Arbroath

A glue formula used by people in South Africa 70,000 years ago required more intelligence than archaeologists normally attribute to Stone Age men. It was made by mixing red ochre with the gum of acacia trees. It turns out that the red ochre serves more than a decorative purpose, as researchers found out when they made some of the glue themselves.

"We discovered that when we used ochre, the glue is much more robust, and the stone tool doesn't come off the shaft," said study team member Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

But making the glue wasn't easy for the ancient Africans.

It was mentally taxing work that would have required humans to account for differences in the chemistry of gum harvested from different trees and in the iron content of ochre from different sites.

"They couldn't possibly have known about chemical pH or iron content … but they knew that certain combinations of things worked very well," Wadley said.

Link