Wonder® Bread Wonder® Woman
Emily Berezin made a woman from eleven loaves of Wonder® Bread and the bags they came in. The result is, of course, Wonder® Woman! See more pictures in her Flickr set.
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Beaver Recipes
Mmmm, beaver! Bug Girl posted these beaver recipes from a 1960 pamphlet entitled Good Eating from Woods and Fields, which also includes instructions for cooking muskrat. Link -Thanks, ersatz soubriquet!
See more from the booklet in her Flickr stream.
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FUN PRODUCTS FROM THE NEATORAMA SHOP:
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Mousetrap
Cheese Board and other Party
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Science
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She Saved the Puppies!
British citizen and experienced sailor Laura Hughes and her friend John Cochrane were battling gale force winds off the Turkish coast when a rope got caught in her boat’s propeller and killed the engine. She sent a Mayday signal and a boat responded, but the crew demanded 10,000 euros for their rescue -more money than Hughes had. So she jumped in to swim to shore. But she had some precious cargo to take with her -two dogs and their nine puppies who were born during the boat trip!
So, wearing a lifejacket, Miss Hughes jumped out of the boat, carrying the nine Rottweiler puppies ‘African-style’ by balancing the crate on her head and holding the side with one hand while swimming with the other.
Mr Cochrane and the two adult dogs also jumped off the boat and swam to the nearest beach at the Greek resort of Lalissos about 100 metres from their boat.When they got to the shore, exhausted, they were helped by German tourists from a beach hotel and members of the emergency services.
The British Embassy found Laura and John a hotel room for the night – and the puppies spent the night at a local Greek police station.
(image credit: KNSNEWS)
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Merriam-Webster's Top Words of 2009
The folks who bring you the Merriam-Webster dictionary select their top words of the year not by how trendy or new they are, but by which words are the most looked up in their online dictionary. This year, nine of the top ten words are easily linked to big news stories. For example, the word people look up more than any other was “admonish”, which had to do with Rep. Joe Wilson’s interruption of president Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress in September.
Wilson’s interruption wasn’t exactly an act of admonishing, since that word (defined by the Visual Thesaurus as “warn strongly” or “take to task”) usually implies a gentler, not so confrontational approach. Admonish made the news the following week when the House of Representatives voted on a resolution disapproving of Wilson’s conduct. The resolution wasn’t so strong as a rebuke or censure, so admonish fit the bill in many of the press descriptions.
Other words on the list include philanderer, pandemic, and rogue. Link -via Metafilter
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Symphony of Science
Remember A Glorious Dawn, the awesome auto-tuned Carl Sagan (and Stephen Hawking) video clip that went viral? What could be better than that? Well, John Boswell of Symphony of Science made another song, this time featuring Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube Clip] – via Friends of Tuva
Previously on Neatorama: 10 Neat Facts About Carl Sagan
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Medieval Tron
It’s no wonder that Neatorama reader Guy won the recent Bent Objects caption contest – turns out he’s one of the guys behind Brevity, a darn funny syndicated comic strip. This one above, titled Medieval Tron, is my favorite, but they’ve got tons of other great stuff.
Links: Lots of comic panels at Comics.com | Brevity’s official website – Thanks Guy!
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Al Farrow's Guns & Ammo Reliquaries
Trigger Finger of Santa Guerra
When I die and become Saint Neatorama, I’d like sculptor Al Farrow to make me a reliquary to treasure one of my body parts. Presumably my blogging pinkie. Al has made some 40 unusual reliquaries, mausoleums and monuments out of guns and ammo parts, dedicated to preserving the body parts of fictional saints.
Link – as suggested by Minnesotastan in this Neatorama post by John Farrier (yes, I do read the comments 
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Galileo's (other) Finger, Tooth, and Thumb Have Been Found
It’s been a long and undoubtedly strange journey for Galileo Galilei’s various body parts. Some of you will recall that when his body was reinterred in 1737, his middle finger was removed, along with several other body parts. The finger and a vertebra have been stored (and displayed) in museums in Florence and Padua.
However, after passing through various collections for several hundred years, a tooth, a thumb, and another finger “went missing” in 1905. It was just recently that they were identified:
“His lost fingers and tooth were bought by an unnamed collector at a recent auction, where they were being sold as unidentified artifacts contained in an 17th century wooden case…”
So will these appendages now be reunited with the rest of his corpse in the tomb in Florence? Well, not exactly. It seems they will “be exhibited from early 2010, when [Florence's History of Science] museum will re-open after current renovation work and will change its name to the Galileo museum.”
Those who find this entire business a bit bizarre are invited to also read or listen to NPR’s report about “The Twisted Journey of Napoleon’s Privates.”
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Do You Love the Smell of Old Books?
What you smell may be a marker for their slow death. After noticing that professional conservators smelled paper while doing their assessments, researchers from University College London’s Centre for Sustainable Heritage used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify and quantify the substances released by old books.
Their report in the journal Analytical Chemistry identified acetic acid, furfural, and lipid peroxidation products in various proportions depending on the types of paper, binding and inks used, and they suggest that a “sniff test” may be useful to identify books in need of the attention of a conservator.
And how does one describe the smell of old books to a non-chemist? The next time you attend a wine tasting, deftly switch the conversation to books and tell your friends that what you love is…
“…a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness.”
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Visualizing the Rise and Decline of Four Empires
(Video Link)
Pedro M. Cruz, a graduate student in information visualization and interaction design, created this time-elapsed representation of the rise and decline of the British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish overseas empires from 1800 to 2000. He writes:
The data refers to the evolution of the top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries by extent. I chose the maritime empires because of their more abrupt and obtuse evolution as the visual emphasis is on their decline. The first idea to represent a territory independence was a mitosis like split — it’s harder to implement than it looks. Each shape tends to retain an area that’s directly proportional to the extent of the occupied territory on a specific year. The datasource is mostly our beloved wikipedia. The split of a territory is often the result of an extent process and it had to be visualized on a specific year. So I chose to pick the dates where it was perceived a de facto independence (e.g. the most of independence declarations prior to the new state’s recognition). Dominions of an empire, were considered part of that empire and thus not independent.
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LED Tattoos
Charlie Sorrel has an article at Wired exploring the potential development of LED-lit tattoos. New chips are small enough to be placed under the skin, mounted on a sheet of silk that dissolves into the body:
New LED tattoos from the University of Pennsylvania could make the Illustrated Man real (minus the creepy stories, of course). Researchers there are developing silicon-and-silk implantable devices which sit under the skin like a tattoo. Already implanted into mice, these tattoos could carry LEDs, turning your skin into a screen.
The silk substrate onto which the chips are mounted eventually dissolves away inside the body, leaving just the electronics behind. The silicon chips are around the length of a small grain of rice — about 1 millimeter, and just 250 nanometers thick. The sheet of silk will keep them in place, molding to the shape of the skin when saline solution is added.
These displays could be hooked up to any kind of electronic device, also inside the body. Medical uses are being explored, from blood-sugar sensors that show their readouts on the skin itself to neurodevices that tie into the body’s nervous system — hooking chips to particular nerves to control a prosthetic hand, for example.
Chips are already used inside bodies, most notably the tiny RFID tags injected into pets. But the flexible nature of these “tattooed” circuits means they can move elastically with the body, sitting in places that a rigid circuit board couldn’t.
The electronics company Philips is developing the idea, and you can see a concept video of their work at the link.
Link | Image: flickr user spacemanbobby
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Il Silenzio
Conductor/composer Andre Rieu showcases Il Silenzio (commonly known as a variation of Taps) with trumpet solo by 13 year old Melissa Venema. The song is much more beautiful when played in its entirety, as opposed to what we hear in movie funeral scenes. This is probably the most peaceful five minutes you’ll have all day.
Il Silenzio from Brandon Noonan on Vimeo.
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Bacon Mug
This is a functional mug made out of woven strips of bacon, filled with melted cheese.
I have not yet been able to find the name of the genius responsible for this holy creation. Will s/he step forward and claim the appropriate adulation?
Link via Geekologie
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Phasers in Early Product Development
Strong emphasis on the word “early.” A research team at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada was able to temporarily stun worms with an ultraviolet light:
The animals that scientists experimented with — pinhead-sized worms known as nematodes — stayed paralyzed even when the light was turned off. When exposed to ordinary light, the paralysis wore off
The researchers fed a light-sensitive material — a “photoswitch” known as dithienylethene — to the transparent worms. When exposed to ultraviolet rays, the molecule turned blue and the worms became paralyzed. Using visible light instead made the chemical turn colorless and the paralysis ended [...]
Branda wanted to make clear that this photoswitch would likely not have the same effect on humans. “You’d have to have a huge amount of it,” he explained. “If you did, you might see the activity of cells shut down, which would eventually kill them. Paralysis is just an intermediate step to death in many cases.”
Video at the link.
Link via Discover | Image: Paramount Pictures
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Web 2.0 Utilities As Intoxicants
In a new comic, cartoonist Patrick Moberg compares various web 2.0 social networking tools to intoxicating drugs, including tumblr, twitter, vimeo, and myspace. But don’t think that he holds these utilities in low regard. Moberg once used them and more to locate a girl that he saw on a NYC subway.
Link via Urlesque | Image: Patrick Moberg
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A Collection of Neat Bookends
Photo: Gentle Giant Studios
The Star Wars cantina bookend set is currently out of stock, and at a cost of over $150.00 it’s definitely for those with money to burn. Neatorama sells cool bookends for far less. However, this and other examples including Lord of the Rings, Batman vs. Superman, Harry Potter and more can be ogled at Uphaa.
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Dramatic Chipmunk Messenger Bag
Remember the Dramatic Chipmunk Internet meme? Well, I don’t know what took so long, but the chipmunk (or prairie dog if you want to be technical about it) has made a come back of sorts.
Behold the Dramatic Chipmunk Messenger Bag, made from thick faux canvas, with adjustable nylon strap. From the Neatorama Shop: Link (At a distinctly non-dramatic price of $11.95!)
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Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind
Some things are so obvious, it only took a quarter-century for someone to think of this. (via b3ta)
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Camels for Digestion's Sake
This 1936 ad for Camel cigarettes encourages you to stop and smoke between each course of your Thanksgiving feast. Link to Flickr page (full size). -via Metafilter
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Pumpkin-Apple-Pecan Pie
Can’t decide what kind of pie to serve after Thanksgiving dinner? Make them all in one pie pan! Cakespy at Serious Eats experimented with pecan, apple, and pumpkin pie recipes to make this triple threat. The best results came from the pie divided into sections, as seen in the picture. The recipes are included. Link -via Unique Daily
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The Decade in Seven Minutes
Relive the past 9.8 years in news stories condensed into seven minutes, peppered with snark and wit. via AcidCow.
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26-year-old World War I Victim
Maité Roël of Bovekerke, Belgium is the youngest victim of the first World War. As a disabled war victim, she carries a veteran’s card that entitles her to reduced train fares, but gets suspicious looks when she uses it. Roël was only nine years old when an RAF bomb that was inadvertently thrown on a bonfire nearly destroyed her leg. She underwent 29 operations and was addicted to morphine for ten years.
“We went on a scout camping expedition to Wetteren and I remember now that it was an old military camp,” Maité recalls very slowly. She has tiny dreadlocks that hang down her slim face and a silver ring in her nose – not the usual face of a First World War victim. “It was July 6th, 1992. I knew nothing about war. I remember we all built a fire using bricks round the outside and the other kids starting throwing logs on it. I was tired and so I went a few metres from the fire so I could sleep. Then there was a sudden explosion – I woke up and saw sparks from the explosion. Everyone was running and shouting and I tried to get up and I couldn’t. Everyone was looking at me and I looked down – and I saw that my left leg was hanging by a piece of skin.”
Roël is under the care of the Belgian Institute for Veterans’ Affairs and War Victims. She has no interest in learning about the war that affected her life. Link -via YesButNoButYes
(image credit: Laurent Lenclud)
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Real-Life Simpsons House
Photo: Design Fetish
In 1997, home developer Kaufman & Broad built a house in Henderson, Nevada that looks exactly like the house that the Simpson family lives in, both inside and outside, including furniture and pictures on the walls. From an article in The Las Vegas Sun, written at the time of construction:
“The Simpsons”, the satirical, animated clan who put the phrases “Doh!” and “Eat my shorts” into the national vernacular, are celebrating their 10th year on television. And in true Simpson fashion, the producers of the show are doing the unexpected – recreating the family’s two-story domicile right down to the throw rugs. Builder Kaufman & Broad has taken the 724 Evergreen Terrace address out of two dimensions and cast it in three, placing it smack dab in the middle of Henderson, Nev., in a housing development appropriately called “Springfield.”
News Story and Gallery via GearFuse
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5 "Oddball" Crocs Found in Sahara Desert
A strange assortment of prehistoric crocodilyform fossils have been found in Africa. Crocodilyforms are ancient cousins of today’s alligators, crocodiles, and caimans.
For instance, the rodent-like RatCroc had buckteeth for rooting through the ground after tubers or simple animals.
The flat-bodied PancakeCroc was the “ultimate sit-and-wait predator,” Sereno said. The animal would lie motionless and “wait for something stupid” to swim into its rail-thin, 3-foot-long (0.9-meter-long) jaws, which were lined with rows of spiky teeth.
DuckCroc had a long, smooth, sensitive nose to poke through vegetation as well as hook-shaped teeth to snag frogs and small fish in shallow water.
And the plant-eating DogCroc had lanky legs that meant it was likely spry enough to run into the water if threatened.
By far the mightiest of the lot, BoarCroc was a 20-foot-long (6.1-meter-long) “saber-toothed cat in armor” that ate dinosaurs for dinner.
DuckCroc and DogCroc were previously known to scientists, and the rest are new discoveries by a team headed by Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. The expedition found fossils of all five in Niger and Morocco. Link (with video) -via Digg
(image credit: Mike Hettwer/National Geographic)
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Woodpecker vs. Snake
A crimson-crested woodpecker battles an olive whipsnake on Peru’s Yarapa River. One presumes that the snake was stealing eggs or attacking chicks in the woodpeckers’ nest. The battle ends by the 3:00 mark.
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North Pole Mail Program Discontinued
The 2,100 citizens of North Pole, Alaska take Christmas very seriously. Since 1954, they’ve volunteered for Operation Santa, a program of the US Postal Service which answers letters to Santa Claus. The program has volunteers all over the country, and many letters are routed through Alaska to get the special North Pole postmark. However, the USPS is discontinuing the practice of sending letters to the town of North Pole.
Anchorage-based agency spokeswoman Pamela Moody said dealing with the tighter restrictions is not feasible in Alaska.
“It’s always been a good program, but we’re in different times and concerned for the privacy of the information,” she said.
Moody stressed that kids around the world can still send letters to Santa Claus. The Postal Service still runs the giant Operation Santa Program in which children around the world can have their letters to Santa answered, and the restrictions do not affect private organizations running their own letter efforts.
But what will change are the generically addressed letters to “Santa Claus, North Pole” that for years have been forwarded to volunteers in the Alaska town. That program will stop, unless changes are made before Christmas.
North Pole residents are upset over the changes, and also unhappy that North Pole cancellations will now be stamped in Anchorage instead of Fairbanks, which is only 15 miles from North Pole. Link -via Consumerist
(image credit: AP/Sam Harrel)
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A Song About the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual
(Video Link)
“Monster Manual” is a song by the band Mixel Pixel. It tells the tale of a role-player’s struggle with a particularly brutal Dungeon Master, who is throwing just about every creature in the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual at him. The video is animated by Dan Meth, whose work has been featured extensively on Neatorama.
via Popped Culture | Mixel Pixel | Dan Meth
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A Bank Robber Nicknamed "Shrek"
“Ears” something unfortunate for bank robber David Holyoak of Manchester, England: his distinctive feature made it really easy for the police to identify and locate him!
As Holyoak, of Whitefield, Manchester, began a three-and-a-half year jail sentence for robbery yesterday, one officer said: ‘This man only needs to look at himself in the mirror to realise crime is not for him.
‘With his big ears and rotund features he stands out a mile, and the officers have no trouble spotting him. He must be a total liability when he is part of a gang.
‘He has already been dubbed Shrek and must be one of the ugliest robbers in the country.’
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2009 Olympus BioScapes Images
The winners of the 2009 Olympus BioScapes Photo Digital Imaging Competition were just announced yesterday. Here are some of the wonderful winning and honorable mention images:
1st Place Winner:
Water flea Daphnia atkinsoni. This specimen has a "crown of thorns," a defensive trait induced in offspring only when the parents sense chemical cues released by one of their main predators, the tadpole shrimp Triops cancriformis. The water flea´s exoskeleton (exterior structure, green) and subcellular details within the organism (nuclei – tiny blue dots) are both visible – Dr. Jan Michels, Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, Germany.
5th Place Winner:
Unicellular alga Penium, treated with the microtubule poison oryzalin – by David Domozych, Skidmore College.
Ma. Ivy Clemente of Pulilan, Philippines, got an honorable mention in this year’s competition, but I think her entry is the most stunning. Behold, the cancer alphabet:
Spelling out the diagnosis: Glandular structures from fibroadenoma and nodular prostatic hyperplasia cases – by Ma. Ivy Clemente, Pulilan, Philippines
Fetal cat coronal section – by Mike Peres, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York.
Squid embryo – by Rachel Fink, Mount Holyoke College, Massachussetts
Link: Winners Gallery of the 2009 Olympus BioScapes
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Tim Burton Exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art
Filmmaker Tim Burton’s visual art will be on display starting on Sunday, Nov. 22, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His media include watercolors, line drawings, pastels, and sculptures. The exhibit features not only film concept work, but his independent, stand-alone projects.
News Story and Gallery via io9 | Image: Tim Burton
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