Our songwriting contest ended weeks ago, with the winning entry transforming “I Wanna Be Sedated” into “I wanna piece of bacon.” But reader Donna decided that deadline or no deadline, she had to have some of our attention:

To the chorus of “Brass In Pocket,” by The Pretenders:

Gonna use my arms
Gonna use my legs
Gonna use my style
Gonna use my sausage
Gonna use my fingers
Gonna use my, my, my imagination

As someone who has never understood that particular lyric, which is apparently “my sidestep,” I think that’s special (so special!). I’m starting to wonder if there’s a market for a carnivore-themed album. Any more meaty ideas?

Editor’s note: I am sick right now, so this is probably the DayQuil talking.

Scientists at Wicab Inc. have filed a patent application on an invention they think will help those suffering from brain damage to return to many of their previous activities such as walking or riding a bike. Using electrical pulses, this device will stimulate the tongue, which they say is helpful in re-training the brain:

A false palate with a square grid of 160 gold-plated electrodes is placed on the tongue and wirelessly connected to the output of a motion sensor and camera fitted on the patient’s head. The sensors deliver a coarse image of the scene ahead to the grid, which the tongue’s nerve cells send to the brain.

Wicab says that with less than an hour’s training, the brain learns to correlate the input from the tongue with whatever other sensory signals it is getting from the eyes, inner ear and other parts of the body. As patients recover their balance they are weaned off the tongue-based assistance.

Wicab claims this same technology can be used to help blind people create a rough image of the world around them and that it can also help divers and those in the military with night vision.

We know how much you all loved Ransom’s Geo-stumper, so we’re serving another one up today, only let’s call it a Celluloid-stumper.

(By the way, little known factoid: film isn’t generally made from celluloid anymore, but rather polyester.)

Now then, without Googling, (and we mean it!), bragging rights to the person who can answer these three questions first, and correctly:

Question #1: What movie does the following excerpted dialogue come from?

Character A: Can you name all the members of the Cabinet?

Character B: Yes… I know the names of the Cabinet.

Character A: Okay… All Twelve?

Character B: Yes.

Question #2: Name the actors who played both characters.

Question #3: Tell us what Character B’s answer should have been to the question posed by Character A and why.

On your mark, get set, GO!

Neatorama had a ginormous post yesterday about the origins of photography. We’ve pulled some of our favorite facts (that’s the world’s first photomontage, above), but trust us, the whole article is a great read!

• In 1760, long before photography was invented, author Charles-François Tiphaigne de la Roche wrote a story about “a race of secret supermen in an imaginary wonderland who could fix a reflected image onto a canvas coated with a sticky substance.”
• The French government bought Louis Daguerre’s patent for the daguerrotype in 1839, presenting it as “a gift free to the world.” Alas, the “free” and “the world” parts weren’t exactly accurate: Daguerre had already obtained corresponding patents abroad.
• The same year, Sir John Frederick William Herschel coined the word “photography.” He would also go on to coin “snapshot,” as well as “negative” and “positive” as they apply to photos. Scientific acumen ran in the Herschel family; his dad, Sir Frederick William Herschel, discovered the planet (last we checked) Uranus.
• The photo below, which Edward Steichen took in Long Island in 1904, recently sold at auction for $2.9 million, making it the world’s most expensive photograph.

Tim Nudd of Adfreak points us to a great ad campaign for RISK, The Game of Global Domination.

While we’re here, a little background. RISK was created in 1957 by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse, who is best known for The Red Balloon (1956). What a two-year span. RISK’s original title, La Conquete Du Monde, means “The Conquest of the World.” In 1959, Parker Brothers bought the game and changed the name.

If these ads have you longing for an empire of your own, head on over to Boardgame Central. If you’re looking for competing imperial rulers, Yahoo! Groups has a list of RISK clubs (online and offline). And for a leg up, check out one of the many RISK strategy websites. Unfortunately, Hasbro has shut down a Risk: Google Maps spinoff.

More of the campaign after the jump.

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In just a few short days of kitten ownership, I’ve realized something profound: kittens are totally awesome. Whenever geo-political balderdash threatens to send me into a funk, a quick feline belly-rub is tonic. So in honor of young Nico (pictured at left, between knees), here are a few cat-lovin’ facts for you ailurophiles out there:

* Cats are one of the most efficient predators among animals their size. They have been known to hunt over 1,000 different species — then drag the mangled results inside for your approval. (An old cat of mine once left such a gift for me under my bedcovers, Godfather-style. Brutal, amici!)

* Despite the widely-held belief that cats are solitary, even antisocial creatures, feral cats often form small colonies — called “clowders” — in the wild. One of the most notorious of these is the large, urban clowder which haunts Rome’s Coliseum; city officials are attempting to battle the nuisance by catching and neutering/spaying all of the more than 500 feral cats one at a time.

* Forget the elephant — cats have a memory 200 times better than that of dogs, which allows them to learn complex tasks such as turning water faucets on and off, opening latches and even using and flushing a toilet. (No joke — I know a cat named Watson who does this. No litter box necessary, and you don’t have to walk him, either.)

* Cats who exhibit the dreaded “evening crazies” are really practicing a deeply-ingrained form of self-defense. Cats are crepuscular, not strictly nocturnal, meaning they’re highly active during the twilight hours, thus helping to protect them from the bigger, nastier animals who hunt later at night.

Bonus: this is a very cute music video, starring kittens.

Here at mental_floss, we know a lot of people (our president included) who have recently had babies. May we present the perfect shower gift, from Baby Toupee?

And yes, that one on the left is called “The Donald.”

The history of wigs, after the jump.

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Just in time for any Plutonian funeral festivities you may have planned (hey, he was the god of the underworld), our commemorative t-shirts are now in stock in our store. Not planning a party? Wear yours in protest at the next meeting of the International Astronomical Union, in 2009 in Rio. Available in dark gray in four sizes, from Pluto to Jupiter.

So we all know our planet is in trouble, right? Old news by now. Especially when it comes to using up things like water, a natural resource many think will be fought over in the not-so-distant future. COHA (that’s the Council On Hemispheric Affairs) even claimed earlier this year that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population might already be suffering from severe water scarcity.

But we also know, deep down, we’ve all got the ability to affect change now, even though in the grand scheme of things, most of us probably don’t feel like our singular contributions will really make any big dif, right?

Wrong…

Here’s another simple dishwasher-related tip, with some even simpler math, which proves that every little change you make, goes a long way in restoring the balance.

Verily, Consumer Reports says unto thee:

Don’t prerinse dishes before loading the dishwasher. You’ll save as much as 20 gallons a load, or 6,500 gallons per year. Our tests show prerinsing doesn’t improve cleaning. Or, use the rinse-and-hold dishwasher feature for a less-than-full load before later in the week running the full load. The rinse-and-hold option uses about 2 gallons of water… and make your next dishwasher a water-saver. The most water-efficient models we’ve tested use only about 5 gallons per wash–less than half that of the least water-efficient models.

This blog has publicized some pretty ludicrous ways of stopping global warming in the past, but today’s might really be more than just a gas: Dr. Dieter Adam of New Zealand proposes to do it by genetically engineering “fuel-efficient” cows that don’t need to burp very much. According to The Age, this could end up being a $4 million project. The AFP explains:

The project aims to breed more efficient cows that convert their food into more milk and less methane, one of the greenhouse gases blamed for rising temperatures across the planet. …

In 2003, the New Zealand government attempted to impose a methane tax on farmers because their livestock was responsible for more than half the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the so-called “fart tax” was dropped after protests from farmers.

We’re not talking about an insignificant amount of methane here; Cecil of The Straight Dope says a single cow produces 400 quarts worth of burps every day. Cow poop also releases a lot of methane when it’s broken down; some farms have harnessed that power to produce their own electricity. Waste not, want not, I guess.