When people are bored, they come up with all sorts of unusual experiments that, if otherwise occupied, perhaps they wouldn't ordinarily try. There is little doubt that this has led to some great discoveries over the years, but this particular one is probably unlikely to have widespread cultural ramifications. It involves Jello and the question of whether or not it can be nailed to a wall.

I won't keep you in suspense. Jello - or jelly if you're not from the US - cannot be nailed to a wall in its standard form. When prepared according to package directions, the amount of gelatin that gives the food its signature "jiggle" is not enough to hold it together when nailed to a board. If you live somewhere where you can purchase concentrated jelly/Jello cubes, however, you will find that it can easily be nailed to a wall.

Mystery solved.

[via boingboing]

It's something of a mystery as to where the FOX network gets some of their programming ideas, so the original inspiration for this particular segment is anyone's guess. Since Takeru Kobayshi can out-eat just about anybody, FOX decided to have him face off against a Kodiak bear - an 8-ft tall, 1000-lb animal - in a hot dog eating competition.

The clip is pretty funny, actually. The announcers treat it almost like a wrestling match and the best line is when they start to talk about the bear's technique vs. Kobayashi's. "[The bear] has a very different approach to eating. See, he looks away and he takes a break. He doesn't know it's a competition. He's just a natural eating machine." For his part, Kobayashi definitely knew it was a competition and didn't take his eyes off the bear.

Who emerged victorious? You'll have to watch the clip to find out, but I will say that someone is already eagerly awaiting a rematch.

Pity Robert Wood. The Scot has a problem: he cooks in his sleep. According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Wood routinely sleepwalks, but the real problem comes when he gets into the kitchen and starts whipping up dishes - and he's not just heating up soup. His wife, Eleanor, has caught him making omelettes and spaghetti bolognese in his sleep. As expected, the couple is a bit worried that Rob is gonna burn down the house. "Every night, I have to think, 'Is Rob going to cook?'" says Eleanor. And no - no mention of Ambien in the piece.

[Image Coles.com.au]

A Japanese sake company noticed that its master brewers always had such nice skin! So Ozeki asked 11 employees to drink sake (270 millileters, to be exact) and measure the moisture in their skin before and after. Moisture content of their arms grew by 30%, compared to no change when drinking another alcoholic beverage.

The employees may have gotten sloshed, but it was for a good cause! Now several Japanese companies are developing sake-based skincare products. Evidently, there are 36 active substances in the sake-derived extracts produced by Yushin-Brewer, which contains koji mold, lactic acid bacteria and yeast. Yushin-Brewer is also making an anti-ulcer product. And I have no idea how that relates to having moist skin, but there you go.

I think I'd rather just get the lovely skin effects from drinking the sake. You?

It's hip to eat savory ice creams, and if you go to a food festival you're bound to see something in the creamy, cold category no matter what the topic - even, yes, garlic. But octopus, that's an ice cream I've never either (a) tried or (b) cared to try. Jason from Damn Interesting agrees, and says: "damnit, we have to draw a line, and Octopus Ice Cream would have to be on the far side of that line."

Watch Iron Chef and you're bound to see some strange ice creams. Sure, sure, that's a spur-of-the-moment exercise in bizarro creativity. But this is a packaged variety available commercially. Does it sell? Has anyone tried it?

But there are some places that even we, jaded food lovers that we are, don't imagine finding food. Let's take wounds, for one. In 2005, Slashfood discovered the Bacon bandaids. Take data storage devices, for two. This week we learned of the strange-yet-wonderful sushi USB drives. Then, there's your lips, who see a lot of food, on the way in. But they don't see much food, well, just sitting around healing your wind-burned kisser. Now they can, thanks to Cheetos chapstick. You think these are weird? That is so not all.

Nir Adar is a food stylist and artist based in New York who has a wonderful website full of interesting and odd food images. I especially like his series of food balls. Basically, he takes different food items—like fried eggs, cereal, or tomatoes—and melds them together into a ball structure. I theorize that at the center of these balls are Styrofoam, and the food items are glued on. Although, I would think some of these items wouldn’t stick very well with glue, like the eggs.