It's a Snap: LEGOS Next Up for Astronauts

Construction on the International Space Station is finished, but the people stationed there still have something to build: LEGOS.

The crew of space shuttle Endeavour, which left the space station for the last time a few days ago, left behind a group of 30 LEGO models of the space shuttle, the space station, and other scientific standards — unassembled. One thing that astronauts will definitely learn how to do with the LEGO pieces is something that they have experience doing — putting things together in zero-gravity.

It is serious business to the people involved, as part of the LEGO Bricks in Space program, which aims to inspire children to learn more about mathematics, science, and technology. And it's not just the space station exterior that the station workers will put together using LEGO pieces; several modules showcase the inside of the station as well, so young engineers can get a taste of what might await them if they pursue a career in astrophysics.

The astronauts who will do the zero-G building will share their findings with NASA and, eventually, with Earth-bound teachers and students.

Endeavour also brought some adult-focused equipment, including the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which will help scientists on the station and on Earth understand more about the makeup of the universe.

Space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to make NASA's final shuttle launch on July 8.

Storm-displaced Dog Crawls Home on 2 Broken Legs

We make a big deal out of the number of people killed or displaced by tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, and the like — and we should — but the silent cost of such natural disasters is the pets that these displaced people leave behind. One such story is that of Mason, a dog whose family was hit hard by the storm that rocked Birmingham, Ala., in April.

The family, who still don't wish their name to be common knowledge (read: in the media), reported Mason missing after the April 27 storms. But Mason was missing. He was just gone.

The storm tested Mason, sweeping him away in its wake and breaking two of his four sturdy legs. Mason was nowhere near his family but knew where he needed to go — home.

And go home he did, inch by agonizing inch. For you see, Mason made it home to his family again. He crawled home. Three weeks later, he arrived on his family's front porch. The tears shed by his family probably started a new neighborhood flood.

His family rushed him to surgery, which was successful enough that doctors expect him to be able to walk again in six weeks. That will be enough time for his family's home to be totally livable again — it suffered damage from the storms.

The family won't likely care that Mason's front legs will be a bit shorter than his hind legs. They will have to look after him a bit more closely, of course, in that he won't be able to walk the same again. He might have trouble running. But he will be alive — and home — again.

Way to go, Mason. Dog gone no more.

Giant Vegas Ferris Wheel the Height of Excess

Talk about an eye in the sky.

A developer is moving ahead with plans to construct a 500-foot Ferris-like wheel that would put paying customers hight above the skyline of Las Vegas. That's right, for a certain price, you can be put in the enviable position of looking up to see the stars and looking down to see the Strip.

The FAA-approved Skyvue Las Vegas Super Wheel, due to open in 2013, is just one part of a massive project with a price tag of $100 million that also includes 200,000 square feet of entertainment space that features restaurants, retail shops, and a roller coaster. Nothing does Vegas like excess.

The Super Wheel will have 40 gondolas, which can hold up to 25 passengers each. Private parties can rent them out, of course. A catering service will be available, naturally (although one would hope that a medical service would also be available to help those who had too much to eat and/or drink before or during their trip(s) around the wheel. Not to worry on the weather conditions, though: The gondolas will feature heating and air conditioning, to account for those hot Vegas days and cold Vegas nights.

For the Vegas nuts out there, the Super Wheel and surrounding entertainment center will be at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and Mandalay Bay Dr.

It's Mind over Body for the 'Iceman'

You can't hassle the Hof, not while he's in the zone.

Wim Hof, a Dutchman, got his nickname of "Iceman" from his extraordinary ability to survive freezing water and temperatures. He says it's all down to meditation.

Hof gained fame a few years ago from a stunt in which he was shut in a box of freezing water on a New York street for 71 minutes. During that time, he neither called for help nor even shiver. Doctors who were monitoring his every move (and he made few) tracked his body temperature dropping from the normal 98.6 to 93.6, alongside a gradual increase in heart rate. Hof says he did it all through meditation. Doctors who monitored him would add that he has the ability to control his body's production of cortisol, the natural defense mechanism that comes into play when the body is "attacked."

He has already proven himself worthy of the nickname, not only with the New York stunt but also with a marathon run barefoot through the snow in Finland in subzero conditions. A swim underneath the Arctic ice the length of a football field, another of his feats, seems paltry by comparison.

How does he do it? Tests have proved that he can indeed provide mental control over his bodily functions, so much so that doctors tracked his ability to increase warmth in one part of his body during a stint being locked inside a tank of ice in Hong Kong for two hours. His lower back got too cold and started to ache, so Hof willed that part of his body to warm up. Problem solved.

He has had a go at Mount Everest, of course, coming within a couple thousand feet of the summit despite wearing only sandals and shorts. He did manage to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, though, boasting the same paltry clothing and footwear.

It's all in his head, doctors say, and in his determination.

He'll definitely need a lot of both in his next attempt, which is to run a marathon through the desert without drinking water.

Man Finds $45,000 Squirreled Away in Garage, Returns It All to Previous Owner

This can only be proof that the world still has some really decent people in it.

In one recently reported story, a man found $45,000 hidden away in a home into which he and his family recently moved — and gave it all back.

This happened in Salt Lake City, in a suburb titled Bountiful. The name of the suburb would certainly have appeared to what the man in question ventured into when he found seven boxes full of money hidden in the garage of the house had recently bought. But the man thought that the previous owner might have had a different purpose in mind.

Seems the previous owner was a man who saved all that money over the years. The man and his wife lived in the house for many years, until his wife died, in 2005. The man lived on a few years, dying in 2010. His children now own the house.

The return-the-money man, the new owner of the house, said he could envision what he thought the hide-the-money man, the previous owner would have wanted — to give the money to his children. One of the man's sons recalled that his father did indeed like to squirrel money away but that he had no idea the amount of hidden cash would be that much.

Anyway, all of the money is now in the hands of the children of the previous owner. As the new owner said, "I felt like I got to write a chapter in his life, a chapter he wasn't able to finish and see it through to its conclusion."

So the guy, who had the chance to quietly spend the $45,000 on his own wife and kids, gave it all back to the rightful owners. As it should be.

Cats to Join the iPad Generation

Didn't know this was an option, and I feel a bit left out on behalf of all the dogs (and dog owners) out there … apparently, you will soon be able to buy an app for your cat.

Now, this assumes two things: you have an iPad and you have a cat. I guess, technically, you don't have to own a cat; you merely have to have access to a cat. You might be a cat-sitter or have a neighbor who has a cat, or you might be one of those people who takes cats in off the street, gives them food and water, lets them sleep on your floor or furniture during the day, then sends them back to the owners at night.

Bottom line: In order to get the full effect of this new wonderful suite of applications from Friskies (Who else?), you have to put a cat and an iPad in the same room and convince the former to access the latter. Good luck.

So the Friskies folks have done their homework, apparently, reporting that they've designed the apps with colors, movements, and shapes that cats will really take to — meaning they'll focus for more than two seconds on them before turning away and back into Catworld. One of the games is Cat Fishing and feature, unsurprisingly, fish that move around the screen. (This would be a good opportunity to reassure all of us that the screens are allegedly strong enough to survive a few swipes from cats' claws. I would think that the iPad would be more prone to being batted about, but never mind.)

iPhone users take heart: Friskies has something for you, too, an app called Here Kitty Kitty, which emits sounds familiar to cats' desires, such as the chirping of a bird or the opening of a food tin. Small-time stuff, that, but it's still all within the realm of cat-friendly applications for your iCompanion. All I can say is, "Wow!"

Check out the fun below.

One Man Running, 3,000 Miles, All by Himself

Dean Karnazes has done it again. This time, his feat was even more remarkable.

Karnazes, the ultra runner perhaps most famous for his 50 marathons in 50 days in all 50 states, can now say that he has run across the country, literally. He began at Disneyland on February 25. He finished in New York City 76 days later. In between, he crossed 16 states and the District of Columbia, averaging 40-50 miles a day and racking up more than 3,000 miles in the process.

And what a process it was. He went through 50 pairs of shoes. He surely burned hundreds of thousands of calories, running 8-15 hours a day.

Promoting his trek across America were the hosts and producers of "Live! With Regis and Kelly." An associated website tracked the runner's progress day by day. Karnazes stopped by the studio as part of his finish flourish, giving a quick hug to hosts Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa and basking in the cheers of the studio audience. There to greet him also were his wife, Julie, and Nick, his 13-year-old son.

The ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra run was part of a drive to benefit the nonprofit Action for Healthy Kids, which aims to help eradicate childhood obesity. Along the way also, Karanazes took part in a host of 5K runs, the entrance fees from which went to the charity, to the tune of nearly $180,000.

What's next for this hero of road? Stay tuned.

Fewer TVs at Home? Bring It On!

The number of televisions in American households has dropped. Big deal.

Do we really need to know that 98.9 percent of American homes had TVs a year before 96.7 percent did? Is that a significant drop? It's still one hell of a lot of televisions, all of them on all the time.

Television manufacturers — not to mention television networks — will, no doubt, be jumping up and down, pointing to the (gasp) precipitous drop in viewership. For surely that's what a drop in the number of TV sets means, doesn't it? Isn't viewership going down simply because fewer sets are being watched?

Well, not necessarily. More and more people are getting their TV fix online or certainly on their computers. Larger and larger computer screens mean easier and easier on the eyes for watching movies and TV. Even laptops are getting large enough to command viewing for shorter-length movies and certainly hour-long dramas like CSI.

Anyone heard of YouTube? Good. That's one big chunk of that 2.2 percent drop. How about Netflix and Hulu? Streamers, both, and they are part of that 2.2 percent drop as well.

But does this mean that people are getting off their couches and exercising or playing with their children or other things that will stave off heart attacks and high blood pressures? Possibly but equally possibly not. For if you can watch a movie on your laptop and you do watch a movie on your laptop, you're still in that dreaded sedentary position that gets you into trouble if you're in it for too long.

Yes, TV is great. It's great to watch world events unfold live. It's great (for some) to watch talking heads shouting at each other, in the kind of bread and circuses theater that would have made the Romans proud. It's great to be entertained and informed and made mirthful and made sad and all the rest of the reasons we watch TV.

But it's not great to do these things at the expense of our health or our insanity. Enough said.