Sunday smörgåsbord

There was no time for a smörgåsbord last Sunday because there was too much new material, so this week there's leftovers to go with the new dishes...

Begin with a nice, simple video from the MIT Physics department demonstrating a bicycle wheel gyroscope.

"Tin Can Curt," an eccentric Swede, collected empty cans from garbage and invested the proceeds from their sale into the stock market. When he died last week he was a millionaire.

There has been a lot of talk (and blogging) in recent weeks about 1) Tea Parties and 2) Teabagging. The "right" said they were doing the former, the "left" accused them of doing thelatter. "Teabagging" has sexual undertones. If you don't know the difference, you should read the link before you use the wrong term at the wrong time.

One of the most common causes of blindness may be curable with stem cells.

While the ice in the Arctic has been melting, Antarctic sea ice has been increasing for the past 30 years.

If you know anyone who is a movie-loving foot fetishist, refer them to this list of hundreds of movie scenes in which women lose one or more of their shoes.

Read the eulogy which Richard Nixon would have given if the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission had died.

The Supreme Court has issued their ruling on strip searching pubertal girls to look for ibuprofen.

Why organic food is packaged inside so much plastic.

Detroit Red Wing hockey fans have developed a tradition of throwing octopi onto the hockey rink.

A spectacular panorama of the Colorado River at Horseshoe Bend. I can't embed it. You need to go there and pan around and up and down with your mouse.

How the Dutch in Rotterdam are using "mosquitoes" to repel teenagers.

Superb photos of snow rollers. These are perfectly natural, but seldom encountered, and I've never seen them photographed in such abundance.

The average IQ of a person in 1917 would be only 73 on the tests used today; half of the population would have been considered retarded.

The joint on a Russian bridge was damaging automobile tires. This is how it was repaired.

Lots and lots of PowerPoint slide shows. The ones I've looked at have been mediocre or worse. Let me know if you find one worth blogging.

A story from the University of Wisconsin at Madison about why the astronauts wore "heavy boots" on the moon.

The British television advertisements that generated the most complaints in 2008.

The movie "Capote" as seen by viewers with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In Ontario a 15-year-old high school student with a black belt fights back (with admirable restraint) when he is bullied with racial slurs and a punch by another student. The school punishes him but not the bully. In response 400 of his fellow students, wearing black in solidarity and carrying signs of support, walked out of Keswick High School..."

How/why some underage teenage girls are becoming sexually aggressive.

In the Cinemorgue you can look up any actor/actress to find out in which movies they died, and how.

Scientists strongly suggest that a third of the ocean needs to be closed to commercial fishing to prevent depletion of the world's ocean fish population.

A 26-year-old woman from North Dakota has been arrested and booked for "breast feeding while intoxicated" (BWI).

Photo credit for the Dagwood sandwich to Perdue graphics.