Orchestra of Garbage

Kids down in Paraguay making instruments out of junk they've found in landfills.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Dec 11, 2012 - Comments (6)
Category: Music

Bacon Möbius Strip

Would pair nicely with the Bagel Möbius Strip, except that unfortunately it's not real bacon, but rather some kind of non-edible plastic resin. It's for sale over at shapeways.com for $19.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Dec 10, 2012 - Comments (4)
Category: Art, Food, Bacon

On Space Time Foam

This is an art installation in Milan, where you crawl with other museum patrons over a plastic surface. Lot of weird pics at the link.

But is that plastic suspended over a high well of emptiness, an atrium or courtyard, as it seems in the video? And guaranteed not to break?

Posted By: Paul - Mon Dec 10, 2012 - Comments (4)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Performance Art, Science, Europe

Catfish Hunting Pigeons On Shore

When these 3 to 5 foot catfish in France senses some motion on the shore, they have adapted their behavior to catch pigeons for dinner. They actually come onto the shore to get the birds. Here's a video of a successful catch.



According to the Public Library of Science, the fish have a 28 percent success rate, which is way better than any hunting or fishing I've ever done.

Here's the link to the story:

http://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2012/12/06/prowling-catfish-catch-pigeons-on-land/

The video calls these catfish "The Freshwater Killer Whales".

Posted By: gdanea - Sun Dec 09, 2012 - Comments (6)
Category: Fish

Betty Boop Crossovers

Proving that crossovers between fictional universes is not a new thing.

Betty was so alluring, all the men wanted to visit her!

And even some contemporary women.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 09, 2012 - Comments (4)
Category: Comics, Crossovers and Mashups, Cartoons, 1930s

The Danger of Tight-Laced Corsets

In the graveyard of Kirkconnel Church (located in Springkell, Scotland) one can find a headstone that, according to legend, shows a woman who died because she laced her corset too tightly. The headstone also shows a man on horseback. He's supposedly going to fetch a doctor for her, though he was too late. Below is a 1907 engraving of the headstone as well as a more recent photo of it that I found on Flickr (Captain Keef Kremmen's photostream).


Whether or not the headstone story is true, tight lacing was definitely a fashion hazard that people worried about back in the nineteenth century, as seen in this cautionary illustration from The Family Magazine, 1835:

Posted By: Alex - Sun Dec 09, 2012 - Comments (7)
Category: Fashion, Nineteenth Century

Life, The Universe and Everything

A mind-blowing four plus minutes!! At about :40 a series of circles puts us all into perspective as the longest zoom out ever shows our place in the universe.



I feel pretty insignificant after all of that.

A quick zoom in at about 3:00 reverses the process, then examines the sub-atomic world -- but I'm not sure what the stuff at the end could be. Guesses or actual explanations are welcome.

Posted By: gdanea - Sat Dec 08, 2012 - Comments (7)
Category: Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy

Mercedes Benz Commercials

Maybe it's just me, but I find these commercials remarkably creepy, inauthentic, unappealing, ineffective and misguided, given my perceptions anyhow of who buys a Mercedes.

What do you all think?

Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 08, 2012 - Comments (8)
Category: Business, Advertising, Humor, Stereotypes and Cliches, Europe, Cars

Does Nostalgia Keep You Warm?

Researchers at the University of Southampton and Sun Yat-Sen University collaborated to explore whether feelings of nostalgia help protect people against the cold. They conducted various experiments (published in the Journal Emotion) such as 1) putting people in a cold room, asking them to recall a nostalgic event from their past, and then asking them to guess the temp; and 2) asking volunteers to recall a nostalgic event while their hand was dunked in ice-cold water. [nbcnews.com]

The researchers concluded that overall recalling nostalgic events "evinced greater tolerance to noxious cold." So instead of turning up your heater this winter you could save some money by wistfully remembering the good old days instead.

Why would nostalgia keep you warm? The researchers suggest that "the nostalgia-warmth link derives from a universal mental association between interpersonal affiliation (which nostalgia fosters) and warmth, which is rooted in infant-caregiver interaction."

But, of course, more research is necessary. For instance, the researchers propose that future investigations will explore whether "nostalgia functions in a different capacity for individuals reared in warm (compared to colder) climates. Conceivably, in colder climates nostalgia could primarily serve to ameliorate thermoregulatory (cold) discomfort, whereas in warmer climates it could primarily serve to ameliorate thirst."

Posted By: Alex - Sat Dec 08, 2012 - Comments (9)
Category: Science, Experiments

Slow Down—You Move Too Fast Decelerator Helmet

With the Decelerator Helmet, you can slow time down to enjoy the view.

The Decelerator Helmet - A slow motion for Real Life from Lorenz Potthast on Vimeo.

Look at the slo-mo and stop-motion skateboard example at around 2:30.

The description of how the technology works is also cool.

It makes me wonder if someone wearing the helmet would bump into people if they weren't in real-time. In the video, the subject walks through the crowd but the video is delayed.

As I bump my way through this crowded world, I may be wearing one of these and not know it.

Posted By: gdanea - Fri Dec 07, 2012 - Comments (4)
Category: Inventions