death-by-cute

The Spelling Faces of the Scripps National Spelling Bee

Max Read · 05/31/13 07:46AM

Last night, Queens' own Arvind Mahankali, 13, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling "knaidel," a Yiddish word for a kind of dumpling. (Mahankali had twice lost in the finals on Germanic words.) But Mahankali wasn't the only star—nearly every kid on the stage had presence. And good "concentration" faces.

And Now Here's a Lion Getting Its Teeth Cleaned by a Dachshund

Neetzan Zimmerman · 05/24/13 09:45AM

This video of a dachshund dentist and its big kitty client comes with absolutely no context, but one thing is abundantly clear: This is by far the cutest cleaning symbiosis in the Animal Kingdom (suck it, hippos and oxpeckers).

'Very, Very Clever' Raccoon Does a Daring Tightrope Walk Across Phone and Power Lines

Neetzan Zimmerman · 04/09/13 11:03AM

There is so much to like about this video: The very, very clever raccoon navigating his way across a makeshift two-rope bridge like a furry James Bond; the Toronto housewife providing National Geographic-ready narration that gives Randall a run for his honey; the nuclear bomb blast toward the end of the video heralding a post-apocalyptic world in which raccoon overlords force humans to produce everlasting mountains of garbage for them to consume.