Using rice with vinegar, salmon roe, seaweed, and sea urchin, art school graduate Mayuka Nakamura took her talents to sushi and created raw fish renditions of imperial warships. For graduate work at Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, she created eleven different renditions of Japanese warships out of sushi, including individual ships with their own Wikipedia page, such as the aircraft carrier Hosho, and destroyer Yurikaze.

I think we can all agree that everything about this Ghostbusters cake is fantastic. First and foremost is the excellent assembly and frosting of the Stay Puft marshmallow man — not to mention the fact that he’s bleeding actual marshmallow fluff. Personally, my favorite aspect is how the baker chose to use a collection of vintage The Real Ghostbusters action figures for the creation. A true master stroke! If you ain’t afraid of no cakes, read on for more images.

Food is just food until Grant Achatz, a chef in the field of molecular gastronomy, gets ahold of it. At his Chicago restaurant Alinea, Achatz takes the idea of a light dessert to new heights with an edible balloon filled with helium. The lighter-than-air confection is delivered to diners on a string of Granny Smith apple and the balloon itself appears to be some kind of sugar confection. Diners are invited to suck the helium from the balloon and sound thoroughly weird as a result, or they can pop the balloon with the included pin. It looks pretty great, but lord only knows I couldn’t afford it. See the video, after the break.

When I did my time in the stockroom at a grocery store, we devoted our “free time” to such admirable pursuits as sleeping in the storage trailers or hanging out in the ice cream freezer, eating out of the damage bins. Apparently other wage-slaves feel better if they waste their time on something that at least looks cool, like turning soda displays into walls of pixel art. Naturally, the form lends itself to video game homages (particularly Mario homages), but you might be surprised at the breadth of the art form. Don’t believe me? Check out this collection of 15 notable examples.

As far as geeky cakes go, this fully edible stormtrooper by Amanda Oakleaf Cakes certainly takes the, uh, cake. Standing a whopping six feet four inches and weighing over 300 pounds on Rice Krispy Treat legs, this cake apparently required whole new cake-making methodologies. The results speak for themselves, as does the fact that it fed around 600 attendees to the Boston Arisia Sci-Fi Convention. Who knew the shocktroops of the Galactic Empire could be so delicious?

What better way to honor the birth of a new year than the falling of a dreaded enemy? That was the thinking from the writer at the Domestic Scientist, who wanted to celebrate the victory of the Molten Core Swim Club guildmates over World of Warcraft’s dreaded Deathwing. The resulting celebratory cake is a thing of beauty, even if some of the horns didn’t survive the baking process. See more pictures, after the break.

This gingerbread house is more than your eyes might initially perceive. With a few whirrs and clicks, the tasty shack becomes a battle-ready robot — just like some kind of transformation-capable robots! The project is the brain-child of Brian Hall, who clearly had a lot of time on his hands this past holiday season. Clearly, Hall is a fan of the Incredible Change-Bots, because where else would he have gotten the idea? Video below the break.

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re pretty big fans of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Or rather, we’re really big fans of the seemingly endless parade of homages to the painting, made on whiteboards, pumpkins, and now: Various spices and foodstuffs. This tasty looking interpretation is the creation of photographer Kelly Mccollam who crafted her work out of spices, food coloring, and potato chips. She says that Van Gogh is her favorite painter and that it only felt natural to create this piece, as well as other delicious re-imaginings of Van Gogh’s work.

See more spicy paintings, after the break.

I love hot dogs, but there is something fundamentally disgusting about seeing them spiral cut. Perhaps it’s because when encased, hot dogs seem far less disgusting than when their weird mystery meat innards are exposed. That said, I have to give Instructables user dreamberry credit for not only developing the spiral cut technique for tube steaks, but for coming up with a double spiral cut method as well. Check it out, in its horrific glory, after the break.

Every work of art seeks distinction, but few do so by using 288,000 jelly beans to create a stop motion animated music video. Directed by Greg Jardin and using the body and music of Kina Grannis, this incredible video took 1,357 hours over nearly two years to make. In that time, the production team shot 2,4360 still frames featuring Grannis and thousands of jelly beans. Amazingly, the whole thing was done without any CGI wizardry or greenscreening.

Not only is it a visual marvel, but it’s a catchy tune and utterly charming. Watch it after the break and be sure to take a minute to see the making-of video, that gives us a peek at how something like this gets made.