The science-art blog Bioephemera reports that every year at this time, Google sees a spike in the number of searches for a certain word, as represented on the chart above. For the grand prize, round-the-world trip to grandfather's house, what is that word? (Tired of trying to figure it out? Click here for the answer.)

Happy Thanksgiving, readers of Tweed!

Last week's death of Uga VII has prompted People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to propose that the University of Georgia replace its line of bulldog mascots with an animatronic dog.

"It is time for the university to put an end to the cycle of suffering endured by dogs who are brought into the world solely to represent the school's 'brand,'" says PETA Assistant Director Kristie Phelps. "By choosing a humane alternative to the use of live animals as school mascots, UGA can show that compassion always wins."

May we suggest Boston Dynamics' "Big Dog" (below), the four-legged robot financed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for future use as a sort of pack mule for soldiers in...

BoingBoing likens Brian Malow's standup routine to "science-based Vaudeville," which is pretty accurate description of his schtick at this month's Wonderfest science festival in the San Francisco Bay area.

A few months back, someone sent us the video below of Tim Lee, a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution who uses PowerPoint to wax funny about

Writing in Wired Science, Reed Timmer describes driving into a tornado west of Aurora, Neb., in June to collect data for his Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Oklahoma at Norman.

Mr. Timmer, who records dispatches for the Discovery Channel's Stormchasers series, drives a specially designed vehicle he calls the Dominator (above), a Chevy Tahoe equipped with bulletproof Lexan windows, a roll cage, and an armor exterior. The shell has a rubber sheath beneath it and can quickly be dropped to the ground to prevent wind from getting underneath and flipping the vehicle.

A Stormchaser video of his encounter...

If you've ever wondered what college students do when they're bored, click through to this series of videos that Ed Comeau, a former fire investigator and the founder of the newsletter Campus Firewatch, compiled from YouTube.

Mr. Comeau sat down for a Q&A with our colleague Eric Hoover to talk about campus fire safety and why so many young men still think it's cool to play with matches.

We wrote earlier this week about Brooke Magnanti, the scientist at the University of Bristol who acknowledged that she was the mysterious sex blogger Belle de Jour, whose memoirs became the television show Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

Ms. Magnanti said that she began working for an escort service six years ago after running out of money while working on her thesis in forensic pathology at the University of Sheffield. Today New Scientist features a Q&A with her that includes this exchange:

Q. Should British Ph.D. students be paid a proper wage, as they are in other countries?

A. I'm in two minds about this:...

As we go into the weekend before Thanksgiving, you might take a few moments to give thanks that you're not having to deal with the problems currently vexing some of your fellow universities:

1. Jeff Schemmel resigned this week from his post as athletic director at San Diego State University after he admitted misusing state funds for a tryst in Alabama.

2. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln agreed to pay $40,000 to an unnamed woman who says she was fired from her job directing a youth program there after an associate dean learned that she was a witch.

3. The Mississippi White Knights of the

Just 15 months after being chosen as the mascot of the University of Georgia Bulldogs, Uga VII died Thursday morning of heart-related causes.

The death came just a week after Georgia's vet school had given the 4-year-old dog a clean bill of health, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

"We are all in a state of shock," Frank W. (Sonny) Seiler, owner of the line of bulldog mascots for more than half a century, said in a statement. "We had no warning whatsoever."

The dog's predecessor, Uga VI,

The football team at Bethel College entered last Saturday's final game of the season with a 2-7 record, a coach who was resigning after 13 years with the team, and steep odds against beating rival Sterling College (6-3 at the time).

Late in the third quarter, with Bethel

In the flesh-eating film comedy Zombieland, the main character, Columbus, becomes one of the last humans on earth by scrupulously following a set of rules for survival.

Here's one he apparently forgot to mention: Go to community college.

A new cartoon short that is making the rounds of middle-school students via social networking asserts that anyone who amasses student-loan debts (i.e. anyone who attends anything other than a community college) is doomed to wander the earth as a zombie. 

The cartoon was created by two Chicago-area institutions -- Elgin Community College and Harper College -- in collaboration with the e-mail provider Abeedle.com. 

It depicts two high-school seniors,...