An interesting collection of photos and short articles from Delaware’s Public Archive 100 Stories Online Exhibition. From this particular photo:
Governor Elbert Carvel and Delmarva Chicken Festival Queen Jane Mustard flash their smiles as she pretends to place a chef’s hat on the Governor’s head at the 1950 Delmarva Chicken Festival.
The installation consists of three 8’ high by 3.5 ’ wide panes of mirrored glass placed side by side, each displaying rear-projected content from a high-lumen projector. A user standing in front of the mirrors has the unusual sensation of seeing their reflection and the projected content simultaneously.
Sensors embedded in the structure above each pane register when a user reaches out to a “hot spot,” allowing users to navigate the projected content without ever needing to touch the “screen” or press a “button.” This combined with scale of the system, and the projected image being captured on the inside surface of the glass creates a unique spatial experience where the content appears organically before the viewer. An additional sensor recognizes when a user approaches and automatically activates the mirror to welcome the visitor.
The interactive mirror is created by Nikolai Cornell of madein.la and Phil van Allen of Commotion New Media, with content by Designory and Mindflood. It was commissioned by The George P. Johnson Company.
Behold the world’s smallest guitar, made by Dustin Carr and Harold Craighead of Cornell University’s Nanofabrication Facility. The nano-guitar is 10 micrometers long, about the size of a single cell human blood cell. Each of the six strings are 50 nanometers wide, about the width of 10 atoms.
Newly discovered fossils of Castrocauda lutrasimilis, a beaver-like animal, suggests that mammals swam with dinosaurs during the Jurassic era.
"Its lifestyle was probably very similar to the modern day platypus," Zhe-Xi Luo, curator of vertebrate paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, said in a statement. "It probably lived along river or lake banks. It doggy-paddled around, ate aquatic animals and insects, and burrowed tunnels for its nest."
Posted by Alex in Fashion on February 24, 2006 at 2:04 am
From the website:
The scarves from this new company are designed by Eve Reaven who is a cell biologist in Palo Alto, California.
Dr. Reaven has used an electron microscope for much of her professional life and has continuously marveled at the intricacy and beauty of the natural patterns found inside cells. She shares what she has seen with others through designs for scarves and other textiles. In the current selection, she captures the essence of structures related to cell movement, cell traffic, energy and performance. The cell structures represented in these patterns are magnified 50,000 to 1,000,000 times their original size, allowing us to experience the amazing designs created by nature.
Generated by water pressure, LED attached to a shower head glows. Since the color of LED changes depending on the water temperature, you can tell the water temperature intuitively.
It turned out that J. Edgar Hoover, perhaps the most famous director of the FBI, loved the classic TV show "I Love Lucy".
He wrote a fan letter to Lucille Ball:
"I got quite a kick out of your reference to the FBI and myself and I don’t believe that I ever laughed as much at any TV program as I did at yours on Monday evening."
Ars Electronica Futurelab is developing what promises to be a very cool table for both collaborative work and communications.
The prototype features a personal workspace for each member of the group as well as a shared virtual working domain that enables participants to organize, process and exchange documents with one another.
Posted by Alex in Pictures on February 23, 2006 at 2:25 am
Parkour or free running is an extreme sport (not to mention a dangerous one, too) founded by David Belle, in which traceurs (those who practice parkour) go from point A to B like a freakin ninja.
Igor has the biggest collection of full, unopened cigarette packs in the world. He has collected them since 1976 and has got over 20,000 packs now. For more, see: Link
Infants are acute listener – they perk up more to people talking than to white noise. And we’ve all heard that infants recognize and react to the mother’s voice.
But research by Athena Vouloumanos, a psychologist at McGill University, sheds a surprising result:
The McGill research group measured a newborn’s level of interest in sounds by giving them sterilized pacifiers that measured the frequency and intensity of the baby’s sucking.
"There are all kinds of suckers: soft suckers, hard, rapid and slow. When they suck hard, they get to hear a sound, and when they’re aroused they suck hard," Vouloumanos said.
The team tested babies that were 10 to 96 hours old by playing recorded sounds of human speech and alternating with recordings of monkey calls. The researchers chose to use rhesus monkey calls because they have a similar vocal tract to humans.
The real George Washington may not look like the guy on the dollar bill. Jim Rees of historic Mount Vernon said that Washington and the artist who painted him actually didn’t like each other!
"You might say that portrait might be an example of an artist’s revenge," Rees says. … ‘What did this guy really look like?’"
So Rees commissioned a group of scientists and artists to recreate Washington at age 57, then age-regress him back to 45, and 19.
Even if you can’t afford the $20 million for a launch into Earth orbit, you can still put a little piece of yourself into space for as little as $35.
Several companies have entered the market to provide relatively low-cost space experiences for the common folk — by launching mementos, hair samples or even mortal remains to the final frontier.
Raphael Ritson-Williams of the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Florida discovered a new species of saltwater flatworm that kills in a unique way:
By engulfing its prey or covering the victim’s trapdoor, the flatworm presumably seals its quarry in a pocket of toxin-laced water
Cueva del Fantasma, Spanish for "Cave of the Ghost", is so big that two helicopters can fly into it and land inside (Did you see them in the pictures above?).
Recently, scientists discovered new species of poison dart frogs there! Link
No, that’s not photoshopped – it’s a real photo of bodybuilder Greg Valentino, who has a 27-inch arm in his peak. He was featured in the recent The Learning Channel documentary on steroids and bodybuilding.
From a very honest 2002 interview with T-Nation on using steroids, its side effects, and going to jail for dealing steroids.
GV: My arms are so big and my shoulders were so broad, they were filming me when I came out of the police station. They do these spoofs about the local news on the Daily Show and they showed me and said, "What do you think this guy was arrested for? Hint: It wasn’t estrogen!" Then they showed me on tape and said, "Local police found that this guy was doing steroids. No shit! What, did you think he was storing nuts for the winter in those arms?"
…
T: Do you think you motivate people?
GV: No, I think I disgust people. I get rotten e-mail from all over the world from people that tell me I suck, I look like shit, I ruined my physique… Then again I do get people who are awed by it, the fact that I’m a freak. Anyway, I know I disgust people. I know I’m the laughing stock of bodybuilding. I know that and that’s okay with me.
Douglas H. Smith of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and colleagues created a new way to engineer nerve structures in a petri dish.
Smith’s group showed that they could grow axons by placing neurons from rat dorsal root ganglia (clusters of nerves just outside the spinal cord) on nutrient-filled plastic plates. Axons sprouted from the neurons on each plate and connected with neurons on the other plate. The plates were then slowly pulled apart over a series of days, aided by a precise computer-controlled motor system.
Posted by Alex in Art, Pictures on February 22, 2006 at 2:35 am
Catherine doesn’t just pick up a can of Raid like the rest of us, she executes ‘em roaches. Check out more of Catherine’s gross, er … engrossing insect-centric art: Link (via Jaf Project)
The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and Keio University in Japan, in collaboration with Burton Inc. have created a plasma laser device to create 3D images in the air!
Posted by Alex in Art, Pictures on February 22, 2006 at 2:01 am
Banksy, a grafitti artist from Bristol, UK, smuggled this dead rat in a glass box into the Natural History of Museum in April 2004, where it was "exhibited" for several hours as staff didn’t notice that anything amiss.
The piece called "Banksus Militus Ratus" was displayed with a text that said the common sewer rat had some remarkable new characteristics.
"Attributed to an increase in junk food waste, ambient radiation and hardcore urban rap music these creatures have evolved at an unprecedented rate."
It quotes a bogus university professor as saying: "You can laugh now … but one day they may be in charge."
Banksy’s manager, Steve Lazarides, said museum visitors liked the rat exhibit and claimed one staff member had thought it was genuine: "I saw a member of staff walk up to it, check it was attached properly, read the text and walk away.
Posted by Alex in Crime & Law on February 21, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Police arrested and accused Franklin Paul Crow of Marion County, Florida, of beating his roommate to death with a claw hammer. Why? Because there was no toilet paper left…
Crow told investigators that the men were fighting about the toilet paper over the weekend when Matthews pulled out a rifle.
Crow said he then began beating Matthews with the sledgehammer and claw hammer, according to an affidavit.
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