Lanxon writes "A mildly terrifying young Brit named Jack Streat has managed to build a series of working guns, including a Lee Enfield bolt-action sniper rifle, entirely out of Lego and rubber bands, reports Wired. Streat, who lists himself as 15 years old on his profile, has constructed an enormous and diverse armory of weaponry that fire either rubber bands or Lego bricks. Most are based on real-life guns, including a Steyr AUG, a Tommygun, an AK-47, a belt-fed M429 PARA, an Arctic Warfare sniper rifle, a Glock 17, a pair of semi-automatic TEC-9s, a SPAS 12 pump-action shotgun and a minigun that he calls the Obliterator."

sparksfly writes "The Terrestrial Shrub Rover is a solar-powered vehicle that looks, as you may have guessed, exactly like a large shrub. According to designer Justin Shull, 'In the spirit of NASA and its forthcoming 2020 lunar expeditions in preparation for colonizing the moon, the Terrestrial Shrub Rover presents the opportunity to explore terrestrial and social environments back on Earth from within a manned, foliage bedecked, solar electric powered rover.'

Do you want to learn how to wear high heels, but feel hopelessly lost on your own? Why not take the six-week course Sexy Heels In The City at London's South Thames College. The government-funded class costs £150 ($268) and also gives lessons on how to carry designer handbags.

A team of scientists at the University of California San Diego, led by nano-engineering professor Joseph Wang, has designed some high-tech underwear that may save lives. Sensors in the waistband can monitor a person's blood pressure, heart rate, and other vital signs. The designers also hope that one day the underwear can release drugs to relieve pain and treat wounds. From the article: "But the technology's range of application goes beyond the military. 'We envision all the trend of personalized medicine for remote monitoring of the elderly at home, monitoring a wide range of biomedical markers, like cardiac markers, alerting for any potential stroke, diabetic changes, and other changes related to other biomedical scenario,' said Wang. Wearable biosensors can also provide valuable information to athletes or even measure blood alcohol levels."

Biologists can't speak on the effectiveness of Calvin Klein Obsession for Men on the cougars at your local bar, but they do know that jaguars love it. Rony Garcia and Jose Moreira from the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Jaguar Conservation Program use the cologne to attract jaguars in the jungles of Guatemala. "The method we are using to study the jaguars here in Guatemala is a non-invasive method which is based on photographing the individuals by using camera traps," Moreira says. "It has been very useful using Obsession (for Men) to get the jaguars in front of these camera traps ... and that allows us to estimate with greater confidence the genders and the numbers that live in each studied site."

An anonymous reader writes "Greig 'Theremin Hero' Stewart has developed a way to play Guitar Hero with a theremin, like an air guitar. The results speak for themselves, in this rocking video complete with awesome costumes and some sweet artwork. It even has a Co-op mode. ROCK ON! This needs to be a real product!" The beginning is a bit annoying, but this has to be one of the coolest "projects" I've seen in a long time.

There are no new stories, only new ways of watching them.

In addition to car exhaust and road grime, travelers along Highway 150 in North Carolina can now enjoy the smell of a barbecue thanks to a new billboard. The work of ScentAir, which provides custom scents for businesses, the advertisement for a local grocer emits the smell of charcoal and black pepper over the highway. "Marketing director Murray Dameron said the beef scent was emitted by a high-powered fan at the bottom of the billboard that blows air over cartridges loaded with BBQ fragrance oil. 'It smells like grilled meat with a nice pepper rub on it,' he explained."

If you try to evict Chinese farmer Yang Youde you better be ready for a lot of attitude and his homemade cannon. Land developers have attempted to confiscate his farm twice, only to be met with homemade rocket blasts. From the article: "'I shot only over their heads to frighten them,' the China Daily quoted him saying of his attacks on demolition workers sent to move him off his land. 'I didn't want to cause any injuries.' The rockets can travel over 100 meters, and exploded with a deafening bang, the official paper added. It did not say if anyone had been injured."

An anonymous reader writes "It was eight years ago that Ghyslain Raza slashed his way into our hearts with his Star Wars Kid video. Sadly, Raza suffered from severe bullying and abuse for his video and eventually ended up in a psychiatric ward for children. However, his video was seen 1 billion times and multiple thousands of geeks came immediately to his defense. While those must have been the worst years of his life, things are now looking up."

When considering a tour of the Mississippi River, most people think of paddle boats or tubes, but Mike Mott wants you to think of Segways. Mott is working with Iowa officials and the city of Davenport to set up Segway tours along the Mississippi River recreational trail. "Mott said his tours will begin in the parking lot of the Union Station Visitors Center at 102 S. Harrison St. After a 20-minute safety orientation, the tours will proceed west to Credit Island, then back to the visitors center and east to the Davenport-Bettendorf border and back again. The tours will take about two hours and will include information about local history and sites of interest, Mott said."

Chef Yukako Ichikawa will offer a 30% discount to patrons who eat all the food they have ordered, and will kindly ask those who don't clean their plates to not come back. "Finishing your meal requires that everything is eaten except lemon slices, gari (sushi ginger), and wasabi," says the menu. "Please also note that vegetables and salad on the side are NOT decorations; they are part of the meal too."

Brian McCrary just bought a website to complain about a $90 speeding ticket he received from the Bluff City PD — the Bluff City Police Department site. The department let its domain expire and McCrary was quick to pick it up. From the article: "Brian McCrary found the perfect venue to gripe about a $90 speeding ticket when he went to the Bluff City Police Department's website, saw that its domain name was about to expire, and bought it right out from under the city's nose. Now that McCrary is the proud owner of the site, bluffcitypd.com, the Gray, Tenn., computer network designer has been using it to post links about speed cameras — like the one on US Highway 11E that caught him — and how people don't like them."

Inventor Jiro Takashima had a simple dream. He wanted to create the world's most perfect hemorrhoid massager. He realized his dream with the invention of the Pro-State massager. It wasn't long however until it became obvious that people were using his design for pleasure instead of legitimate medical purposes. He and his company, High Island Health, are now suing a British company known as Pleasure2Me and others claiming infringement of his patent of a plastic massager designed to massage a man's prostate without the use of electrical power. From the article: "'Our business took a major detour when men started using our prostate massager for recreational purposes,' said Amy Sung, executive director of High Island Health, a Houston company named for a translation of her inventor father Jiro Takashima's Japanese name."

Instead of congratulating 24-year-old Washingtonian Gavin Stanger on the remarkable amount of things he could hide in his rectum, Wenatchee Police have arrested and charged him with introduction of contraband into a jail. Stanger smuggled a cigarette lighter, cigarette rolling papers, a golf-ball-size baggie of tobacco, a bottle of tattoo ink, eight tattoo needles, a one-inch-long smoking pipe, and a small baggie of suspected marijuana into the Chelan County Regional Justice Center, a feat that left officials gaping. "We were all wondering, 'How do you put all that up there?'" Sgt. John Kruse said. "The tobacco was pretty impressive; it was a good ounce."

The management of Wheat Ridge, Colorado's Olinger Crown Hill Cemetery wants to change its image by hosting special events including art exhibits and concerts. The 103-year-old burial ground hopes that the events will change perceptions of their cemetery as "something more than a spot for solemn rituals." From the article: "The push to make the cemetery feel more like an ordinary part of the community began a few years ago and is gaining momentum. Crown Hill now urges people to tour the grounds and examine works by the Mexican artist and architect Dionicio Rodriguez — his only pieces in the state are scattered throughout the grounds."

__roo writes "According to North Korea's official news agency, a drink produced by North Korea's Moranbong Carbonated Fruit Juice Joint Venture Company can cure aging and all disease. 'It, with effects of both preventive and curative treatment, helps improve mental and retentive faculties by multiplying brain cells. It also protects skin from wrinkles and black spots and prevents such geriatric diseases as cerebral hemorrhage, myocardium and brain infarction by removing acid effete matters in time.' It also has no side-effects." Last month North Korea announced its fusion breakthrough, and now it has a super drink. One can only imagine what wonders may come in July — perhaps self-buttering toast.

CheshireCatCO writes "Pranksters at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., turned Goodsell Observatory on campus into R2D2 overnight Wednesday. In the morning, the observatory played droid sounds and moved its 'head' back and forth, a la R2."

cremeglace writes "The journal Science is sponsoring the 3rd-annual 'Dance Your Ph.D.' contest. Grad students in science-related fields create a video of their dissertation, interpreted in dance form, and compete for $1,000 and a screening at a film festival in New York. 'Science-related field' is broadly defined and includes computer science and engineering. Some funny videos from past years of the contest are up at the contest website, and an official announcement is in the print edition of this week's Science."

An anonymous reader writes "Parrots intoxicated by a mystery substance are dropping out of the sky near Darwin, Australia. From the article: 'It seems that the birds get intoxicated by something they have eaten and it renders them unable to fly and function ... they can get very sick as a result.' Around eight to ten birds a day have been brought to the hospital after falling to the ground in backyards and along roadsides. A total of 40 lorikeets are now receiving treatment."