662 lookalikes tip their hats to Charlie Chaplin
More than 600 Charlie Chaplin lookalikes paid tribute to The Tramp Sunday on what would have been the silent film star’s 128th birthday. They gathered at the British comic’s former house at Corsier-sur-Vevey in Switzerland overlooking lake Geneva. The Tramp is arguably Chaplin’s most iconic character, appearing in The Kid (1921), City lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936).
They claimed a world-record for largest gathering of Chaplin lookalikes with 662. They also commemorated the first anniversary of Chaplin’s World museum at the estate Chaplin’s family lived during the last 25 years of his life.
(UPI)
1,500-pound Rubik’s Cube unveiled at university
University of Michigan mechanical engineering students have made one of the most popular puzzle games much larger. And tougher to solve. Seven former and current students unveiled a 1,500-pound Rubik’s Cube during a ceremony Thursday inside the GG Brown engineering building on the Ann Arbor campus. The massive, mostly aluminium structure is meant to be played by students and others on campus.
Four students came up with the idea three years ago and handed down the project to other students. “It’s the largest solvable mechanical stationary Rubik’s Cube,” said Ryan Kuhn, a 22-year-old senior who helped assemble the giant puzzle this week. “It was kind of an urban myth of North Campus, this giant Rubik’s Cube that’s been going on for a while.”
The oversized version of the brain-teasing 3-D puzzle, which has flummoxed players since its heyday in the 1980s, is much harder to decipher than its diminutive counterpart, said Kuhn, who called it an “interactive mechanical art piece.”
The puzzle is solved when the player is able to manipulate the cube until all nine squares on each of its six sides display an individual colour. “It’s very reasonable that it could take at least an hour” to solve, said Martin Harris, who helped conceive the project in 2014 while hanging out in the College of Engineering honours office.
(AP)
Whales approach tourist boat in Mexico for some love
A group of women on a whale watching tour in Mexico received a rare honour when a mother whale and her baby came to the surface for some love. Dawn Feurberg of Aurora Adventures, which organises annual women’s trips to Baja California for whale watching and other activities, captured footage of the tourists petting a mother whale and her baby when they surfaced next to their boat.
Feurberg said the mother whale appeared to be pushing her baby toward the boat during the April 3 encounter. “Emotional, loving, connected mammals. Watch this mama push her baby to us to receive love and love us up. So healing,” Feurberg wrote.
(UPI)
Researchers name loud shrimp after Pink Floyd
A newly discovered species of shrimp that uses a bright pink claw to create a sound loud enough to kill small fish has been named for Pink Floyd. The shrimp found on Panama’s Pacific coast has been dubbed Synalpheuspinkfloydi in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. Oxford University Museum of Natural History researcher Sammy De Grave is one of three researchers credited with discovering the creature. He says the description of the shrimp was “the perfect opportunity to finally give a nod to my favourite band.”
According to Oxford, pistol or snapping shrimps close their enlarged claws at a rapid speed to create an imploding bubble. The result is a sound so loud it can kill or stun a fish. Pink Floyd is also honoured in nature with a damselfly named after its 1969 album “Ummagumma.”
(AP)
marshmallow Belle at show
A Maryland county’s ‘PEEPshow’, a celebration of the marshmallow Easter treats, features a life-size sculpture of Disney princess Belle made from Peeps. The Carroll County 10th Anniversary PEEPshow, an annual sculpture contest utilising marshmallow Peeps, features entries including a life-size version of Belle from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
The Belle sculpture was constructed from nearly 1,500 Peeps — that’s about 42,000 calories of Disney princess. Other top entries, which are on display at the at the Carroll Arts Centre in downtown Westminster, include a Game of Thrones “Mother of Peeps” dragon, a “Mr. Peep-tato Head,” a “Peepington Bear” and a surfing Pikachu that for some reason isn’t called “Peep-achu.”
Fans can pay $1 to cast votes for their favourites and the proceeds go toward supporting the arts in Carroll County, officials said.
(UPI)