Today’s Brain Game requires a cell phone. Don’t own one? Just pretend that you do. In fact, pretend that your cell phone has a texting feature, and that the numbers 2 through 9 represent letter groupings in the typical fashion:

Like most texting phones, to reach a letter of the alphabet, you’d press a particular number to cycle through its letters until you reach the one you want. Given the above image as a guide, here’s your puzzle. Good luck:

Come up with an eight-letter English word
that would require pressing each of the
8 letter-coded numbers at least once.

Benjamin Franklin invented a musical instrument in 1761 based on the same principle as wine glasses played with a wet finger. Listen to French artist Thomas Bloch demonstrating a glass harmonica, or armonica, at the Paris Music Museum.
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The Hand, Digits of Death. The hand with a mind of its own is the theme of many a horror film. Isn’t that handy?
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Volcanoes Wiped Out All Forests 250 Million Years Ago. That time, it took them four million years to recover.
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Famous Dogs Adopted From Shelters or The Streets. See, the pup you rescue during Adopt A Shelter Dog Month may turn out to be a star!
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How the stars of Top Gear came to be chased out of town by American rednecks. They won’t be going back to Alabama anytime soon.
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The Coolest Guy in the World. He’s “kinda just great at everything” except making those around him feel adequate.
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Putting Humpty to Shame: How to Have a Great Fall (and Survive). Still, you don’t want to try this at home.

With the introduction of the “Feel Art Again” Facebook page, we held a contest to find our farthest fan. Reader Kelly Deaton from Russia easily beat the competition, winning a week of “Feel Art Again” posts on Russian artists.

Vasily Polenov (1844-1927) was the first artist to introduce the plein air techniques of France to Russia. The artist, who was exalted for his historical paintings but personally preferred landscapes, spent much of his career trying to balance the two genres.

1. After simultaneously studying both art (at the Imperial Academy of the Arts) and law (at St. Petersburg University), Vasily Polenov had to choose between the two careers. It wasn’t an easy decision for him to make: in 1871, he won the Grand Gold Medal for “Resurrection of Jairus’s Daughter” and received his law degree. Ultimately, though, he chose art.

2. Along with the Grand Gold Medal, Polenov also won a travel bursary for “Resurrection of Jairus’s Daughter.” He spent a year traveling through Germany and Italy, and then set up shop in France for four years. Polenov later traveled to Greece and the Middle East as well, causing him to be possibly one of the most traveled Russian artists of his generation.

3. The album Tolstoy’s Walk bears evidence that Polenov was also a skilled composer with “the potential to be a career composer of some note.” Three songs written by Polenov appear on the album—a compilation of Romantic-era music written by amateur composers—that also includes songs by Leo Tolstoy and Boris Pasternak (author of Doctor Zhivago).
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You’re in an all-day brainstorm session, coming up with ideas for a new spokesman for your client’s product. A famous sports figure, trendy reality star, cartoon panda…who could it be? And then it dawns on you—let’s do the Angel vs. Devil thing. No one’s done that in a while. Have they?

John Hodgman always seemed a little devilish to me. (more…)

Gandhi died in January of 1948. Angelina was born in June of 1975. Two different personalities, two different astrological signs, yet amazingly similar outlooks. (There’s irony in there somewhere.)

Take the Quiz: Gandhi or Angelina?

If you’re looking for conversational nuggets relating to the Nobel Prize (and who isn’t?), CNN.com is running an article from our archives today with stories about past winners. Enjoy!

Read the Story: Odd Facts About Nobel Prize Winners

There have been numerous jokes over the years as to what Snow White’s sidekicks should have been named, but these were really options! The original fairytale left the dwarves nameless; theater productions over the years either followed that tradition or made up random names such as Quee and Glick. But Disney wanted his dwarves’ names to reflect their physical and character traits. Just think how different the movie might have been if Snow White’s most lovable little buddy had been named Dirty. Hmm.

1. Chesty. This just has “wrong” written all over it.
2. Deafy. Deafy also made it into a draft and his character was described in a manner that would probably make the American Society for the Deaf cringe:
“Deafy is a happy sort of fellow – he always tries to make clever remarks, but he misinterprets other people’s attitudes toward him. He feels, lots of times, that they are saying something about him, or that they have made some remarks, which they haven’t at all – he takes exception to the most ridiculous things. Throughout the picture Deafy and Gordon are always clashing. Deafy will pick up one word of the conversation in the early part, and whereas the conversation topic might have changed completely, he still sticks to the first thing that he heard, and in this way we hope to get some comical situations out of Deafy.”
3. Tipsy. A drunken dwarf may have sent the wrong message to children.
4. Titsy. Umm…

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Devotees of online “cuteness overload” sites are probably familiar with Knut, the polar bear born in 2006 at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Little Knut was rejected by his mother and was subsequently hand-raised by zookeeper Thomas Dörflein, who slept on a mattress next to Knut’s crate at night in order to provide 24-hour care. Both Knut and his caretaker became reluctant celebrities and regularly greeted visitors at the zoo at set times each day.

As fluffy and adorable as baby Knut was, he was destined to grow up into a full-fledged adult polar bear, considered by biologists to be the most dangerous species of the bear kingdom. Adult Knut was just recently introduced to a three-year-old female on loan from the Munich Zoo. The humans involved hope that the pair will eventually have amour on their minds, and they’re encouraged by Gianna’s initial reaction: she smacked Knut on his snoot, a not uncommon practice among female polar bears and potential suitors. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with polar bear behavior in general, here are a few quick facts:

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Missing a crucial bit of glamor in your everyday life? Then why not get yourself a copy of Glamourpuss: The Enchanting World Of Kitty Wigs? The creator, Julie Jackson, and her photographer, Jill Johnson, have moved their fine line of kitten wigs into the wonderful world of print. For an exclusive sneak peek, take a look at the article on Urlesque.

Julie actually creates all the custom cat wigs herself, and each wig comes in a metal tin with a metal mouse rattle to help distract your feline friend as you take embarrassing photos of him or her. Of course, if your kitten won’t wear a wig, or if you don’t have a cat at all, you can still take part in the guilty pleasure of kitty wigs with the new book.

David Letterman has been in the news for helping police foil an attempt to blackmail him, but the late-night star is hardly the first celebrity in this position. Here are a few other brazen—and mostly unsuccessful—attempts to blackmail famous people.

1. Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby may be one of television’s most famous family men, but a 1997 extortion attempt tried to claim that his family was a bit bigger than anyone knew. That year, a 23-year-old woman named Autumn Jackson attempted to extort $40 million from Cosby in exchange for not telling the press she was the star’s illegitimate daughter. While Cosby admitted that he had an affair with Jackson’s mother and had given the woman and her daughter over $100,000 in support over the years, he flatly denied being Jackson’s father. Jackson’s timing probably didn’t help, either; Cosby received her demand the same day Cosby’s son, Ennis, was murdered.

Jackson, who was convicted along with two accomplices, received a 26-month prison sentence. An appeals court briefly overturned the sentence in 1999, but quickly reversed itself and sent her back to the clink.

2. Louie Anderson

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