A Manitoba resident saw this polar bear approaching his sled dogs and braced himself for the worst. Instead of eating the pups, this polar bear just hung out and played with them. The bear came back every night for a week to hang out with his new friends.

Via Now That’s Nifty

DIY booze is all the rage, from home brewing to home infusing. While cucumbers marinate in a vodka bath over my fridge, my attentions turn to sweeter stuff. Specifically Baileys. In our vegan household, we’re always interested in ways to veganize foods we’ve abandoned, so below is a recipe for homemade Baileys (along with substitutions to create vegan Baileys if you so desire). Recipe via Cupcake Project.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup light or heavy cream  (VEGANIZE: Soyatoo Whipping Cream or Silk Non Dairy Creamer)
• 14 oz sweetened condensed milk (VEGANIZE: Use melted vegan vanilla ice cream)
• 1 2/3 cup Irish whiskey
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee
• 2 Tablespoon chocolate syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender and set on high speed for 30 seconds.
2. Bottle in a tightly sealed container and refrigerate. Shake before using.
3. Will keep for up to 2 months.

Bottoms up

Next decision, what to do with our new boozy sugary creation. Go a favorite recipe with Baileys? Let me know.

I love when science solves problems no one really has. Take the case of this “food printer”. Dubbed “The Cornucopia”, this totally unnecessary gadget:

1. Gets loaded with canisters of all your favorite foods.

2. After you select a meal using Cornucopia’s touch screen, it assembles your gruel, er um, I mean dinner.

3. The process involves piping ingredients into a  mixer and them “extruding” them. Yum.

It also tells you the calories and carbohydrate content of your meal. I am not sure caloric content will be a concern once I’m faced with a steaming pile of cucumber, ravioli and peanut butter mush. Thanks any way, science. I think I’ll just check my floor to see if I can find any stray potato chips:

Above decision making chart via Swiss Miss

(Bela Szandelszky/AP)

This pic was taken during a winter charity run in Budapest (temperatures were around 5 degrees Celsius or 41 degrees Fahrenheit). I like how the guy in front is so excited, and he just can’t hide it.

OK, so maybe that header is a bit harsh. There’s a new iPhone app called Urban Signals. If you go to the proprietary site, you’ll get a cutesy little demo video of how it works; it basically turns your cell phone into a GPS device that helps point out other single-and-looking folks. At first blush I thought this was way creepy, but then I paused and thought about it and realized that since it’s an opt-in subscriber-driven app, the only people who will show up on your phone’s UI are exactly like you (editorially speaking). So it’s a lot like a less web 1.0 version of Craig’s List’s “Missed Connections” board, with the possibility of a “Casual Encounter” thrown in. So…still creepy, but vaguely consensual.

That said, I could see this blowing up in the faces of the creators of the app when the resulting network is comprised of a) an army of Comic Book Guys pinging b) a much smaller army of kind of cute girls with no self-esteem.

We always joke that our cat, Oliver, is the sandman. If you’re trying to get out of bed in the morning, he’ll try to keep you there with his kneading and cuddling. If you sit down on our bed (or his bed, if you ask him) to pet him, his hypnotic purrs will have you knocked out faster than a dose of Lunesta.

But these kitties at the Cincinnati Zoo are actually sandmen! Well, sand cats technically. These little desert cats have fur on their paw pads so they can walk around on the hot sand. At just 4.5 to 5.5 pounds, these cuties are even tinier than the kitties at our house. Admire the cute below:

Via zooborns

Do you love getting drunk but hate the pukey, headachey morning after? Well, science has, once again, stepped up to the plate! Scientists are now developing a booze substitute that gives you a buzz, but won’t get you totally falling down hammered or give you a hangover. Imagine, those nights of dancing on the bar and waking up next to a complete stranger could be a thing of the past. As an added bonus, the fake booze will come with an “off” pill, so you can drink up during your lunch break and return to your job as a forklift operator immediately after.

The fake booze is being designed using chemicals related to Valium. It will work like booze on the brain, providing a feeling of relaxation and happiness. Unlike real booze, the impostor version won’t cause mood swings or addiction. Sounds like a win-win I guess. Thanks, science? I just hope fake booze will be as delicious as the original.

While we’re on the subject of fun with booze, my wife and I are going on vacation in May! (Vacation usually involves a fair amount of adult beverage consumption). We are going to Reykjavik, London and Amsterdam! If you have tips on any of these locales (or live there and want to join us for a beer) let me know. I’ve never been to any of these cities so I would love to hear your suggestions on what to do, where to go drinking or where to stay.

P.S. Many thanks to Modern Cat for featuring us today! I know lots of our readers are as crazy for kitties as we are, so take a gander at this kitty related blog. We’re doing a tee giveaway over there too, so be sure to check that out.

The existence of the World Beard and Mustache Championships is actually not news to me; Kent Jones did a feature on the competition last Fall during his “Just Enough” segment on The Rachel Maddow Show.

What is news to me is that these “Olympics” are such a meticulously organized event that there are qualifiers to compete, like the Beard Team USA Nationals. Check this site out; some of these guys are actually alternates in case an injury occurs.

I guess what’s most surprising about this hirsute subculture, at least at first, is that there are actually cash prizes involved (I wonder if I can get the wife behind a decade of no shaving if there’s money involved….) But think about it: these beards and moustaches represent a lot of time, dedication and maintenance. So does the luge.

Provide your witty captions below

Larry Downing/Reuters

Have you ever wondered about the physiology of music? Not the actual physiological make-up of music, but the body parts most often sung about? Well, the good folks at fleshmap.com have done all the heavy lifting for you, compiling data gleaned from over 10,000 songs (genre-independent) to create a pictographic body rebus. The diagram illustrates a genre by genre breakdown of body parts mentioned in song lyrics and their frequency. It’s pretty interesting. For instance, 77% of all songs feature the eyes as the most dominant lyrical body part. 22% feature the hands (blues and gospel). 11% (the percentage of hip-hop songs studied) featured the butt most prominently-in fact, within genre, the butt takes up the largest piece of the pie, with 20% of hip-hop body references relating to the booty (they like big butts and they cannot lie.) That said, hip-hop also offers the most physiological variety in terms of lyrical topics, with nearly twice the number of discrete body parts mentioned than any other genre.

I was a bit surprised that the eyes won out within the metal genre; I thought for sure the pictogram at the top of that list would feature a dragon, or maybe Satan. But I bet if the researchers went back and listened for context, the eyes in question would belong to dragons and/or demons. Glenn Danzig would happily grudgingly lend his personal library for cross-referencing this, I’m sure of it.

So this got me to thinking: what body part(s) do my commenters’ favorite artists/songs favor? Please respond below with artist, title, and excerpted lyric quoted.