Richard Cotton took a photo of this very scary looking spiny orb weaver spider during his travels to Angkor Wat, Cambodia. He’s a brave man, because it that were me, I’d be running the other way!

Link (Thanks Richard!) | If you like spiders, then you’ll like Richard Seaman’s website: Spiders of Vietnam

Apollo Diamond, a start-up company founded by a former Bell Labs scientist in his garage, has succeeded in making big, flawless diamonds for jewelry and technical applications.

Linares built machines in his garage, superheating carbon in suburban Boston while his neighbors went about their lives. He got the CVD process to work, at first making tiny diamond chips. He formed Apollo and started down the path to industrial diamonds. Then Linares inadvertently left a diamond piece in a beaker of acid over a weekend. The acid cleaned up excess carbon — essentially coal — that had stayed on the diamond.

"When I came in Monday, I couldn’t see the (stone) in the beaker," Linares says. The diamond was colorless and pure. "That’s when I realized we could do gemstones."

Link (Thanks Jason!)

Ikea and Deutsch teamed together to make "everyday fabulous" for New Yorker in this guerilla marketing blitz in preparation for Design Week in New York City. They put together over 600 installations: living rooms in bus stops, oven mitts in subway trains, pens in ATM machines (until they were all stolen anyhow!)

See more pictures: Link

The Cloud Appreciation Society has a neat collection of clouds that looks like things. The photo above was taken by Angelo Storari in Ancona, Italy.

Link | Cloud Gallery

Peter Callesen made this very cool paperworks out of a regular A4 paper and glue. See his other creations: Link

Found at Bits & Pieces.

Marky Cutkosky and colleagues at Stanford University created this gecko-like robot with sticky feet that can scamper up a wall.

Stickybot, developed by Mark Cutkosky and his team at Stanford University in California, has feet with synthetic setae made of an elastomer. These tiny polymer pads ensure a large area of contact between the feet and the wall, maximising the van der Waals stickiness.

And of course:

The Pentagon is interested in developing gecko-inspired climbing gloves and shoes. Cutkosky says a Stickybot-type robot would also make an adept planetary rover or rescue bot.

Link

Chris drew this to illustrate broadband companies battling for rights in rural America for NetWorker Magazine.

See more of Chris’ artwork here: Link

Finnish photographer Pentti Sammallahti took this cool photo of cats staring longingly at drying fish in Islati, Iceland.

See Pennti’s photo gallery at Photo-Eye here: Link

See this quirky art sculpture in action: Link | Adam Janes’ website (via Jaf Project)

Blatte’s website has an awesome collection of fractals! This one’s aptly titled "Green Dragon" and it’s available as a desktop wallpaper. Link

Yes – that’s a Google Maps satellite photo of a big ship on dry land in Whampoa, Hong Kong.

Turns out that it’s the landmark of the Whampoa Garden housing estate – the ship is a tribute to a dockyard that used to be on that site.

The ship itself is actually a shopping center (what else?).

From the website:

A dragon-like dinosaur named after Harry Potter’s alma mater has performed a bit of black magic on its own family tree, say paleontologists who unveiled the "Dragon King of Hogwarts" on Monday in Albuquerque.

The newly described horny-headed dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia lived about 66 million years ago in South Dakota, just a million years short of the extinction of all dinosaurs. But its flat, almost storybook-style dragon head has overturned everything paleontologists thought they knew about the dome-head dinos called pachycephalosaurs.

Link

NASA will launch a new mission dubbed Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) to study a mysterious glowing cloud that has been spreading around the world:

The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission will be the first satellite dedicated to studying this enigmatic phenomenon. Due to launch in late 2006, it should reveal whether the clouds are caused by global warming, as many scientists believe.

"Noctilucent" clouds, which glow at night, form in the upper atmosphere, at an altitude of about 80 kilometres, and their glow can be seen just after sunset or just before sunrise.

Link

We’ve featured Theo Jansen’s amazingly complex wind art before, but it’s worth another look see.

Hit play or go to YouTube Link | Theo Jansen’s website (This one’s for you Adam Beane!)

Carl of theWAREHOUSE has a neat collection of Ripped Off Logos and Stolen Images. (Thanks Carl!)

Yes, the Net has everything, including an annual competition of DIY stickers. This one above, an entry by Geo from Germany of a funny cartoon character jimmying a showcase lock, won third place.

Link (Thanks Yayo!)

Byron sent me this photo of a two-tailed lizard found in his home in Orlando, Florida (Thanks Byron!).

For other lizard curiosities, see previously on Neatorama: Weird Animals: Toad with Tail and Lizard with Two Tails.

Theispot.com showcases works of over 1,100 commercial illustrators from over 16 countries. You can browse by subject or artist, and even buy illustrations online!

Link (Thanks Dave Tabler!)

Mikel’s artwork shines fruits in a new light: Link (Don’t miss Sacrifice of Subject Matter and the fantastic reflections of Freedom Horn!)

For you literary-junkies, it turns out that Jane Austen’s letters contain many references to shopping:

From the letters it is apparent that the Austens bought some of their groceries on credit. On their journeys through London and Kent they frequently stopped at Guildford where they visited Mr Herington’s shop. There are several references in the letters to trying to pay his bills. On 20 May 1813 her party stopped at Guildford and she paid an earlier bill at Mr Herington’s and bought more goods from him on credit. Four days later she enclosed Mr Herington’s new bill in a letter to Cassandra. In March 1814 she intended to pay a bill of Mr Herington’s on her way through Guildford but she stayed at Cobham instead. One hopes she was trying to pay a later bill, not the one incurred 10 months earlier.’

Link

Harry’s other books on travel and adventure wouldn’t make it to Neatorama. But his book, titled "Moles and Their Meaning", sure is a shoe-in:

.. every mole upon the face of man or woman has upon some other portion of the body a corresponding birthmark, the position of which can generally be located with startling accuracy.

Honey-coloured: "A man of singular good wit, happy in getting goods. It promiseth inheritance, the favour of superiors and the like."
Black: Peril of a fatal but lingering malady connected with the stomach and liver, which will only be averted by great care in diet.

Read more about this fascinating subject on Oddbooks, a website dedicated to (what else) strange books: Link

Lots of remixed propaganda: Link

Fred Eerdekens is a Belgian artist who elevates shadow into an artform. Can you believe that those the shadows of those squiggly copper lines above spell out a sentence? Amazing!

Link (Thanks Raul Sensato!)

Cameron Kelly proposed to his girlfriend Angie Kreimer using a 113-page self-published book titled "50 Reasons Why You Should Marry Me and 51 Reasons Why I Should Marry You". He created the book at Lulu.com, a print-on-demand publishing company.

Reasons that Kelly, 27, felt Kreimer, 28, should marry him included:
# I clean the bathroom every week.
# I’m going to look like Sean Connery when I’m 65.
# You don’t even have to change your initials!

Reasons, meanwhile, that Kreimer was meant for Kelly included:
# I love the way you say "crayons."
# I’m more in love with you now than ever.

"This must be the most romantic book ever published on Lulu," says Henry Hutton, a spokesman for Lulu (www.lulu.com), the web site used to produce it.

She said yes, by the way.

Link | Free eBook at Lulu (via Collision Detection)

Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, Canada, hosts two great sand sculpture contests: the Vancouver Sun Tournament of Sand Sculpture Champions and the World Championships of Sand Sculpture.

Amazing sand sculptures from both competitions will be on display until October 9, 2006. The one above is called "The Arms Race".

See more: Link | Official Website (via Mighty Optical Illusions, Thanks Vurdlak!)

Max Dürsteler of Universitätsspital Zürich, Switzerland won 1st prize at the 2006 Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest with this illusion.

Also, don’t miss the rest of the winners of the contest: Link (via Illusions Etc., Thanks Walt!)

Tessellation or tiling in art is made famous by M.C. Escher. Here’s Hans Kuiper’s version, using a famous duck!

Link | Gallery

From the website:

This project, called TAKELUMA, is a phonetic writing system for representing the sounds of English. In this system, when phonemes are spoke, htye leave their mark on a continuous line of sound. TAKELUMA is an attempt to give shape to the sounds of speech and the hidden meanings they convey.

Link (via Sonic Event)