Jason has a weird choice of media for his artwork: chewing gum on plywood. From the website:

Each Gum Blonde is 100% chewed bubblegum on a plywood backing. No paint or dye is used. The colour is inherent to the gum – the mixing of colour takes place inside the mouth during chewing using an endless variety of flavours made by an endless variety of companies. Kronenwald has a dedicated team of chewers and prefers the texture of Trident. However, he does not chew gum himself unless he must.

Link (Thanks Yayo!)

TechEBlog has compiled its Top 10 Strangest Watches. This one above is Louis Vuitton Twilight Watch, which features:

46 flourescent blue sapphires on a mother of pearl dial to create a beautiful diamond studded silhouette of the Eiffel Tower that glows in the dark. It’s limited to just 20 pieces and available exclusively at the Champs-Elysees Paris store.

Link (Thanks Steve!)

Dutch Store Hema celebrates its 10,000th shoplifter. YouTube user FatAlbert420 translates:

‘kan je het zien’ [can you see it?]
‘die daar’ [that one]
‘kijk, kijk, gaat ze’ [look, look, there she goes]

‘ok, peter klaar’ [ok peter's ready]
‘peter, pakt r’ [peter, grabs her]
‘HEEL GOED’ [Very good!!]

‘lopen, kom op’ [run, come on!]
‘Yuu!’
‘bord! pak het bord!’ [sign! get the sign]
‘hou r vast he, peter’ [restrain her well, peter!]
‘remco! meekomen’ [remco! come!]
‘els! mee’ [els! follow!]
‘peter hou r vast’ [peter, hold her]
‘ja, ja, kom op snel’ [yes, quickly now]
‘goed zo, heel goed, ok’ [good, very good, ok]

‘nee, je hebt helemaal niks gedaan, tuurlijk niet. je hebt helemaal niks gedaan. oké. Ge-fe-li-ci-teerd, jij bent de…’
[no, you haven't done anything, of course not. You haven't done anything. Allright: Congratulations! You are ...]

*gets flowers*

’10.000e winkeldief van dit pand!’
[this store's shoplifter number 10.000!]

‘jaweeel! woooo!’ [ya rly! woooo!]
‘kijkijkijk’ [looklooklook]
‘what hebben we allemaal?’ [what have we got?]
‘eeen TAART!’ [a CAKE!]
‘lach: hehehehe!’ [smile: hehehehe >D]

‘tienduizend! we hebben champagne!’ [miss tenthousand! we have champagne!]
‘voor jou, peter, goed gedaan!’ [here you go peter, well done]
‘nouu, een echte hema taart, yamyamaym!’ [real HEMA cake, yamyamyam >D]
‘in de glo-riii-aaa’ [long live / banzaiii!]

*alarm goes off while the girl makes her escape*

sign at the end:

In geval van diefstal doen wij (bijna) altijd aangifte bij de politie.
[ In case of theft, we (almost) always inform the police]

Hit play or go to YouTube Link (via YesButNoButYes)

Robert Boyd of University of Rochester, New York, and colleagues had accomplished something very strange: they managed to send light backwards!

In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have published a paper today in Science on how they’ve gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light.

"It’s weird stuff," says Boyd. "We sent a pulse through an optical fiber, and before its peak even entered the fiber, it was exiting the other end. Through experiments we were able to see that the pulse inside the fiber was actually moving backward, linking the input and output pulses."

Link (via digg)

Neatorama reader Loopy Loo (hi Loopy!) suggested that we take a look at Judson’s dance routine:

Inspirational Comedian Judson Laipply is the creator/dancer of the “Evolution of Dance”, the video that is taking the Internet by storm! The Dance is the finale to his most popular show titled “Inspirational Comedy” and is loved wherever he performs.

Link to Judson’s website | YouTube Link

Dave Jurgenson, a disabled student has accussed Reading Borough Council for failing his cultural needs because they don’t allow him more time to care for his Afro.

Mr Jurgenson’s concerns have been echoed by a race relations expert, who claims the council is being too slow to respond.

The 26-year-old, who suffers from severe cerebral palsy, said more time should be allocated to care for his distinctive Afro-style hair.

He said: “They don’t give me the hours to braid my hair and wash and plait it. If I am invited to go somewhere special I can’t go with a big Afro.

“It’s a matter of grooming. And every time you go to church you want to be able to look your best. If I was in a care home they would do something about it.

Corrected Link (via Nothing to do with Arbroath)

Cat explains how to make this gothic Barbie bridal cake:

First thing to do is prepare the Barbie. I used Gel pens, but you can really use any art supplies you are comfortable with. I had a limited amount of time, so I did a minimal amount of make up. You should go to town with yours! Be creative!

Link

Corbett got a school assignment to create a sculpture, so he went to a junkyard to find some tires … See the "build log": Link

Ahoy, landlubbers! These characters of Wayne Harris be o-the finest quality, so weigh anchor to his website right now for a merry yarn or ye be wantin’ me to get me hook, savvy ye scallawags?

Yarr! Found via Drawn!, go there too or it’s the plank for you, ye son of a biscuit eater.

Tim Davenport of the Wild Conservation Society and colleagues in Tanzania, Africa, just discovered a new genus of monkey – the first in 83 years!

Known locally as Kipunji, it stands at about 90cm (3ft) tall, is grey-brown in colour with off-white fur on its stomach and on the tip of its long curly tail, and has a crest of long hair on the top of its head. Adults have a distinctive call, described as a "honk-bark".

Read more: Link

Everyone on the darned Interweb has got a blog, including Chewy (What are they doing on the photo above anyway? Wait, don’t answer that!)

Link (via Winkles)

Martin Gregory was enjoying a Sunda morning gardening when he found the face of Jesus in the roots of his asparagus fern!

"The roots are fantastic. You can actually make out a thorn crown around his head, his eyes and nose.

"I’ve heard about Mother Theresa’s face being seen in a bagel but I thought this was much better."

Belvedere resident Mr Gregory removed the plant from his pot, which had been in the garden for 10 years, because he thought it was dying.

He believed the Christ-like image was caused by the roots being pressed against the stones in the plant pot causing the unusual indentations.

Link (via Linkfilter, also Thanks Joseph!)

Gizmag has an interesting article about an electric Cinderella shoes with built-in stun gun!

The Electric Cinderella shoes idea began as part of Simona Brusa Pasque’s thesis at the Interaction Design Institute in 2002 and was inspired by a beautiful woman who Simona interviewed for her thesis who wanted to be able to “intimidate her intimidators.”

She wanted to be empowered without losing her femininity, to have the freedom to be sexy without fear.

The shoes certainly achieve that, offering 100,000 volts of high fashion stun gun power which can be activated by a control on the matching necklace. The weapon is hidden and when the wearer taps on the matching necklace an electric spark is displayed in the transparent tip, warning the would-be assailant to back off. The weapon is designed for a one time use, in case of emergency, by breaking the tip of the shoe.

Link (via Scribal Terror)

Garnet has this to say about his RoachBot:

"Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot" is an experimental mechanism that uses a living Madagascan hissing cockroach atop a modified trackball to control a three-wheeled robot. If the cockroach moves left, the robot moves left. Infrared sensors also provide navigation feedback to the cockroach, striving to create a pseudo-intelligent system with the cockroach as the CPU.

Link (via Make and Reality Carnival)

This one above is a Mandarin duck – amazing color, isn’t it? See more of Juza’s photos: Link (via Ursi’s Blog)

From the website:

A dust cloud of silicon micro-spheres that was illuminated by laser light scattering from the cloud is suspended in a plasma. The dust cloud is approximately 0.5” high and floats in a conical shape between the dust tray and an electrode as long as the plasma is maintained. Fundamental dust cloud properties and dynamics have applications from plasma processing to space plasmas.

This work by Elle Starkman and Andrew Post-Zwicker of the Priceton Plasma Physics Lab won the 2005 Princeton Art of Science competition – can’t wait till the 2006 winners are chosen!

Link: 2005 Gallery of Art of Science Competition

In this 4 minutes and 40 seconds movie released in January 2005 by ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, you can see the Huygens probe plunging through Titan’s thick orange-brown atmosphere to a soft sandy, dry riverbed.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a look-see.

At first, the Huygens camera just saw fog over the distant surface. The fog started to clear only at about 60 kilometers (37 miles) altitude, making it possible to resolve surface features as large as 100 meters (328 feet). Only after landing could the probe’s camera resolve the little grains of sand. The movie provides a glimpse of such a huge change of scale.

The Huygens probe was delivered to Saturn’s moon Titan by the Cassini spacecraft, which is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. NASA supplied two instruments on the probe, the descent imager/spectral radiometer and the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer.

Link to Press Release | YouTube

Andy Warhol’s "Small Torn Campbell’s Soup Can (Pepper Pot)", a hand-painted work from 1962 showing a large soup can with torn label (duh!) was sold for $11.7 million at auction.

For the price tag, you can buy about 7,800,000 cans of Campbell’s Condensed Soup.

Link