I would think that in this economy, the proliferation of everyday items festooned with diamonds would grind to a halt. But I’m wrong, and here are 10 pieces of evidence that prove it.

1. Earbuds. Not only are there 59 diamonds on each bud, they’re made out of 18-carat gold. And they’re only $5,200!

2. iPod. Duh. If you’re going to have the blinged-out earbuds, you’d better have the complementing iPod. For $12,495, you get a white-gold, 4G Nano with 480 diamonds.

3. Yalos LCD TV. It has a white-gold panel and a smattering of diamonds throughout the screen’s edge. The “smattering” adds up to 20 carats. It’s a bargain at $127,000.

4. Hot Wheels car. Again with the white gold. Hot Wheels premiered this $140,000 toy last February. It has more than 2,700 blue diamonds, which are not quite 23 carats in total. The tail lights are made out of rubies, no less.

5. Visa Card. It’s not exactly “encrusted,” but still seems like an unnecessary use of a diamond. The card, containing one .02 carat diamond, is called the Visa Infinite and is issued by the Eurasian Bank in Kazakhstan to clients who make $300,000 or more annually. Considering that ¼ of the population in Kazakhstan lives in poverty, these things are probably few and far between.

6. iPhone. Austrian jeweler Peter Aloisson recently made the priciest iPhone known to man: it’s solid 18-carat yellow gold, white gold and rose gold, has 138 brilliant cut diamonds and one 6.6 rare diamond that serves as the home button. It’ll only set you back $2,517,345.

7. Toothpick sleeve. It’s soooo embarrassing when you’re at a party and get something in your teeth and have to pick it out with a regular old wooden toothpick. How low-brow can you get? Luckily, you can disguise your crappy pick with a diamond-and-gold toothpick sleeve that will look like a million bucks while you pick spinach out of your gap. Or at least 800 bucks – that’s what they start at.

8. Memory Stick. I totally need this for all of the writing I do. I bounce around to several different computers, you know, and I totally make enough money blogging to buy a memory stick encrusted with 600 brilliant-cut diamonds. Yeeeaaahhh. Bonus: you can get it in white or yellow gold!

9. The ubiquitous Victoria’s Secret bra. The 2008 version included 3,575 black diamonds and 34 rubies, with two huge black diamond drops. The gems came in at more than 1500 carats and will cost one lucky person just $5 million.

10. Pacifier. Because your baby really cares what it drools all over. But if you care what your baby drools all over, you can shell out $17,000 for this white gold binky encrusted with 278 white diamonds – a total of three carats. Or you could start saving for college. But you know, whatever. And if a bejeweled pacifier just isn’t luxurious enough, click the link – there are plenty of other expensive sparkly things you can buy your child.

While they might not be diamond-encrusted, we’re giving away five $10,000 scholarships. All you have to do is tell us, in 750 words or less, why you should win. But you have to tell us by January 31st. We look forward to reading your entries!

Today’s cultural milestone: The Bacon Explosion, a piece in the New York Times about the proliferation of food blogging on the internet. New technology has provided a mechanism for rapid dissemination of recipes, causing food to “go viral,” spreading around the world more rapidly than ever before. And what’s more, online food writing is becoming a staple of our media landscape — just last week I pointed to 12 Meals or Bust, a story from So Good, my favorite food blog. Anyway, back to the Times, here’s a bit on the titular food (with some emphasis added):

This recipe is the Bacon Explosion, modestly called by its inventors “the BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes.” The instructions for constructing this massive torpedo-shaped amalgamation of two pounds of bacon woven through and around two pounds of sausage and slathered in barbecue sauce first appeared last month on the Web site of a team of Kansas City competition barbecuers. They say a diverse collection of well over 16,000 Web sites have linked to the recipe, celebrating, or sometimes scolding, its excessiveness. A fresh audience could be ready to discover it on Super Bowl Sunday.

…[the Bacon Explosion's inventor] bought about $20 worth of bacon and Italian sausage from a local meat market. As it lay on the counter, he thought of weaving strips of raw bacon into a mat. The two spackled the bacon mat with a layer of sausage, covered that with a crunchy layer of cooked bacon, and rolled it up tight.

Read the rest for the story of an epic internetborne foodsplosion. If bacon isn’t your thing, check out Gordon Ramsay making “perfect” scrambled eggs. Now get to lunch, people! (But first, care to share your favorite food stories or recipes in the comments?

On Monday, we covered baby girls. Today’s reader-suggested timed quiz is another from Charlotte Huff, who now wants you to name the 10 most popular baby boy names in 5 minutes. For this challenge, we’re using the Social Security Administrations rankings.

Take the Quiz: The Top 10 Baby Boy Names

Got a great idea for a timed quiz? Go to this post and leave a comment. You could win a free back issue of mental_floss magazine, plus your name up there in the banner.

No, this isn’t a Benjamin Button publicity stunt — this is more akin to scary science-fiction. Scientists have just identified a 5mm-long jellyfish they call Turritopsis Nutricula, originally from the Caribbean but soon to be everywhere, which has the ability to “return to a juvenile state” after multiplying. According to the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute, this is the only known animal which is capable of quite literally reverting to its younger self, through a cell process called transdifferentiation.

“Scientists believe the cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it potentially immortal,” the Telegraph reports. “We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion,” one marine scientist said. Almost as striking as their disturbing ability to forever renew themselves is the fact that the animals weren’t always this way — they developed this ability over time, “stumbling across the font of eternal youth” in the natural course of their evolution as a species. Is that the future of evolution, one wonders?

Of course, there’s always a bright side to biologically perverse anomalies like this one: scientists will have the chance to study and learn from it. On the other hand, if you think an immortal 5mm-long jellyfish is frightening, immortal human beings are likely to be much moreso! Stay tuned — more on immortal jellyfish as our understanding of them deepens.

Since we’ve covered the origins of various sandwiches in other Dietribes, this week we’re looking at some straight up sandwich facts and figures, some of which may astound and amaze! Or just … induce hunger.

• In 2008, in a bid to promote healthy eating, Iranians attempted to make the world’s largest ostrich sandwich. It took two days to prepare the massive meat sub, which ran along a measuring tape the length of the table. Unfortunately, some people rushed forward to eat it before it could be properly measured for the Guinness Book of World Records.

• “First came the atom bomb, then stealth bomber and then the airborne laser. Now comes the US military’s latest fearsome weapon: the indestructible sandwich.”

• You might not think the sandwich to have much longevity, but consider the story of the former Boy Scout who saved a half eaten sandwich from Richard Nixon for over 48 years.

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The deadline for our $50,000 Tuition Giveaway is fast approaching. All you have to do is tell us, in 750 words or less, why you should win. But you have to tell us by January 31st. And if you win one of our scholarships, go on to college and then make it big, perhaps we’ll include you in a future edition of the “So, Where’d You Go To College?” game. Today’s topic is movie stars.

Take the Quiz: So, Where’d You Go To College?

We’re back with another 5-day trivia hunt!

Again, the rules: Every remaining day this week, I’ll be presenting a specific challenge. Your job: come up with the answers and hold onto them! Why? Because on Monday, next week, you’ll need them to solve a short puzzle. The first person to email in the correct answers and successfully show how you arrived at them (thus the title: How Did You Know?) wins a choice of any TWO t-shirts and book from our store. In addition to the above, we’ll be awarding a t-shirt to one random winner who has all the correct answers. So even if you’re not the first one with the right answers, there’s still a chance to wind up a winner on HDYK?

And remember, we’re also giving away a really big, sa-weeet prize to any winning contestant who can defend the title three months in a row. Katie Richie and Stacy Vallely are our current champions.You can read about them here.

As with previous How Did You Know? posts, comments have been turned off, but I definitely encourage you to work in teams like our present champions did. Write your friends, send around each daily challenge, conspire, work together, whatever it takes to make sure you’re armed with the right answers going into next Monday’s puzzle. (Questions? drop us an e-mail at: TriviaHunt@Gmail.com)

If you missed Day 1’s challenge, you can find that right over here.

Today we’re playing Name That Athlete. On each of the following pages, you’ll find a picture of an anthlete. Your job? Name them.

See you back for your third challenge tomorrow…

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Two cows walk into a milk bar and order watercress sandwiches. Alex DeLarge winks at his droogs and then walks over to the pair of heifers. “Excuse me,” he begins:

Fast Lane to the Future. India’s new national superhighway has the potential to link different cultures, languages, and classes. With accompanying videos.
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The history of the desk that sits in the Oval Office. The story is much more than you’d ever imagine!
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15 Gifts That Will Surely Piss Off Your Valentine. Spending a lot of money will not hide the underlying message these gifts imply. (via Neatorama)
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Her Morning Elegance is a clever stop-motion music video. This woman does more in her sleep than most folks do all day long!
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Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Culinary Journey of Hell‘. The best letter complaining about airline food ever published.
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Televisions’s Sci-Fi and Superheroes from the ’70s includes some from the ’80s, which in no way detracts from the fun. How many do you recognize?
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A hippo runs over Rudy, because he didn’t listen to the advice of those who had gone before. Another delightful story in the series Congo Memoirs.
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The Bizarre World of Ferrofluid. Watch liquid that not only dances, but can form a chorus line better than the Rockettes.

January 27 is a significant for four artists around the world. Hendrick Avercamp was baptized on January 27, 1585; Arkhip Kuindzhi was born on January 27, 1842; Seison Maeda was born on January 27, 1885; and Rita Angus died on January 27, 1970. A little about each of these talented artists:

Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634) was known as “de Stomme van Kampen,” or “the mute of Kampen,” because he was deaf. The Dutch landscape painter was greatly popular during his lifetime and is still collected today. Queen Elizabeth II apparently possesses an “outstanding collection of his works” that is displayed at Windsor Castle.

Shown is Avercamp’s “River Landscape,” available larger here. If you like Avercamp’s work, check out this gallery of his paintings.

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