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.

Her 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.

Dyer County in western Tennessee experienced severe flooding recently. WREG 3 News reports that at least one hundred people in the town of Bogota alone have been evacuated as tributaries that feed into the Mississippi River have spilled their banks.

But not this family. Aerial video recorded by Randy Gerald Moore revealed an estate protected by its own levees that appear to be just high enough to keep out the floodwaters. The Weather Channel reports that the family has been working on this project for years. Their patient reparation has definitely paid off. I'll bet that the levees would also help during a zombie apocalypse.

-via Breaking911 | Photo: Randy Gerald Moore

We love medieval doodles, from meticulously illuminated manuscripts to ink paw prints, but especially the humorous images of rabbits and snails doing things you won't find in nature. You have to wonder about the circumstances that led to these bizarre drawings. Now we have the story of how one particular volume came to be emblazoned with such creatures plus the spitting image of Yoda.

The Smithfield Decretals is a copy of the Decretales of Pope Gregory IX. It was published in the 1230s in French, with wide blank margins that were meant for scholars to add their own notes. That's not what happened, though. Someone in England got the copy some time before 1340, and knowing that books are better with illustrations, hired artists to add pictures to the margins. It's possible that the owner could not read French, and maybe hoped the artists could. But the artists either couldn't read French, either, or they didn't care about the dry papal correspondence in the text. They just went with what they knew was funny, and that included giant hares and snails and scenes of gruesome violence. Read more about the Smithfield Decretals at Open Culture. -via Nag on the Lake

The RMS Titanic sank on the night of April 14-15, 1912, 115 years ago today. There were 2,240 people aboard, but only 705 were rescued alive when the RMS Carpathia responded to the distress call. Later on, the CS Mackay-Bennett was dispatched to recover the dead, and that ship picked up 306 of the deceased, many of whom were buried at sea. That left more than 1200 bodies unaccounted for.

Some of those missing bodies sank to the bottom of the ocean, but others floated for days and were found hundreds of miles away. Some were identified, others were too decomposed. The last known body to be retrieved for burial on land was finally laid to rest almost two months after the sinking of the Titanic. However, those that were buried without identification were given markers, and some were identified by DNA a hundred years later. Read the grim story of the Titanic victims who weren't retrieved in a timely manner at Smithsonian.

When we say a person has a big mouth, it means they talk too much or spill secrets they shouldn't. But some people really have mouths that are larger than normal. You can't tell that Marie Pearl Zellmer Robinson has a big mouth just by looking at her- until she opens it was wide as she can. The woman from Ketchikan, Alaska, has been named the world record holder for the biggest mouth gape (female), meaning the distance from top to bottom when her mouth is all the way open. The official measurement is 2.98 inches (7.59 centimeters). That doesn't tell you much, but look at all the things she can put in her mouth! A whole orange. A ten-patty burger. A metal can.

Robinson has known her mouth is superlative since she was a kid and her siblings challenged her to fit things in her mouth, but she only recently learned that Guinness World Records had a record for women with large mouth gapes. When she saw what the record was, she knew she had already beaten it. -via Boing Boing

The Easter Bunny is a symbolic holiday character that doesn't make a lot of sense. What does a bunny rabbit and colored eggs have to do with the resurrection of Jesus? Nothing, actually. We often assume that the Christian holiday just incorporated older pagan traditions for a spring holiday the same way that Saturnalia was repurposed for Christmas and Samhain gave us a date for All Saint's Day. Indeed, eggs are a symbol of rebirth and renewal, and rabbits are everywhere in the spring.

Only it turns out that the traditions associated with spring celebrations mainly concern hares, which are a different animal altogether even though they are related. And their connections with ancient pagan mythology? You might be surprised to learn the Easter bunny myth is certainly mythological, but it's not all that ancient. That bunny that brings colored eggs for Easter is more a fairy tale than an ancient tradition. Read about the real origins of the Easter bunny at Mental Floss. 

Back in 1990, a new show called Law & Order arrived on our televisions. Was it a police procedural or a courtroom drama? The concept was both. One crime got split into two dramas: the part where the police find the perpetrator (order), and then the court proceedings to prosecute them (law). It became such a hit that Law & Order lasted twenty years- and was then revived in 2022. But that's not all- the idea was so grand that spinoffs abounded, the same idea with different actors so they could be produced in abundance. Law & Order so far has six spinoff series, one television movie, and several crossover episodes with other TV shows.

We are used to seeing some version of Law & Order every time we check the TV listings. But 25 years later, it would be good to go over the show's origins and how it became an entertainment behemoth over time. Weird History has the scoop on Law & Order.

Yes, scientists could develop flying cars or genetically engineered slaves that would eventually conquer us. But who really needs those developments? We would be content if we could use urinals without getting pee on ourselves from the splashback.

The brightest minds in physics have labored in this field for years. Now, Popular Science reports, they have developed two ideal urinals. Researchers in Canada designed the two urinals named the Cornucopia and the Nautilus. The researchers use advanced computer modeling of fluid mechanics to provide for a cleaner urinary experience.

Their inspiration came from dogs. The researchers found that dogs pee against objects at particular angles that reduce splash. They measured the impact of urine at different angles to find the ideal solution to the "isogonal curve problem." The result is less splashing.

-via Dave Barry

Being a soldier for France in the Légion Étrangère can be rough. The training and discipline are famously brutal. But the Legion takes care of its own. A 2021 article in France Today reports that the institution possesses over 100 acres of wine grapes in Provence that are worked by disabled and elderly veterans.

The vineyard, named Domaine Capitaine Danjou after the Legion's most famous hero, produces 230,000 bottles a year. This income provides 40% of the budget of the Institute for the Invalids of the Foreign Legion. Much of the production is available for purchase at the organization's online store.

-via Wrath of Gnon

In 1777, John Brand, an English folklorist, published Observations on Popular Antiquities. In it, he described the customs of the people of England that might not be known among the upper classes of that nation.

In one passage, he wrote about a custom in which a newborn child is passed through a hole cut in the center of a wheel of cheese on the day of the child's christening. In some villages, the cheese is then cut and distributed to women as an aphrodisiac.

As with previous viral stories about history, my librarian spidey senses alerted to a potential fraud. I can say that Brand may have been incorrect, but he did actually describe this custom in his book.

-via Old European Culture

Instant ramen noodles are great when you're hungry, but a handmade bowl of artisanal ramen is a dream come true. In Japan, ramen is the ultimate the ultimate comfort food, with filling noodles, delectable pork or other meat, eggs, vegetables, and most importantly, the soup. The soup is the foundation for a bowl of ramen piled with noodles and extras that can be a work of art. That soup can vary widely and contain almost anything. In Rishiri Island, that means highlighting the taste of the local seaweed for a soup that people travel hours for. That's the first of three stories about Japanese ramen from Great Big Story. They also go over the history of instant ramen, which is how most Americans were introduced to it. And finally, we learn about Toyama black ramen, which is only available in Toyama. Warning: this video may cause hunger pangs. -via Geeks Are Sexy

We know how the Nazis operated a system of concentration camps across occupied territory, to incarcerate, use as slave labor, and execute millions of Jews. Each one had its own story, but the notorious Bergen-Belsen camp in northern Germany was different from all the others in many aspects. The history of the camp is often overshadowed by the shocking story of its liberation by the British on April 15, 1945. The Wiener Holocaust Library in London has a new exhibit called “Traces of Belsen” to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation.

When the Allies advanced on German-occupied territory toward the end of the war, the Nazis desperately tried to destroy all evidence of the Holocaust, which meant killing as many inmates as possible, but there were also evacuations, bringing thousands of Jews to Bergen-Belsen. The ballooning population was not fed, and overcrowding allowed diseases like typhus to run rampant. More than 18,000 prisoners died in March of 1945 alone, although none were executed. When liberation came, the British found 55,000 emaciated prisoners among thousands more dead bodies.

But that horrifying event is just part of Bergen-Belsen's history. It was also a POW camp where thousands of Russians died, then a holding place for Jewish hostages to be swapped for German prisoners, a hospital camp, a death camp without death chambers, and finally a postwar displaced persons shelter. Read about this unique concentration camp at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: The Imperial War Museum)

TikTok user xx..rayray..xx has trained her face into a tool that creates incredibly vivid expressions. Her eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, and mouth dance with precise and cartoonishly funny motions. Her timing is perfect, especially when lip synching Robin Williams.

It's quite hypnotic and addictive and thus ideal TikTok content.

-via Steve