Photo: Reuters / China Daily

Chinese farmer Wu Yulu likes making robots – has has made 25 robots in the past 26 years. Now, he is homeless and is forced to sell his home-made robots to pay off debts after his house burnt down.

All 25 robots are made of wire, metal, screws and nails found in rubbish sites, with some able to serve tea, light cigarettes and push rickshaws, the China Daily newspaper said.

"I couldn’t sleep for several days after selling the child, but I had no other choice. I had to pay off my debts," Wu was quoted as saying.

"I love to play with robots. The cleverer they became, the deeper the emotional link I felt to them. Later, I began to call them my sons."

Link – via Boing Boing

Forget buying your friend’s kids a drumset, buy ‘em a gallon of paint instead! Found at Factum

From the 2005 Winter Skating Championships in Lyon, France. The skater is Evgeni Plushenko [wiki] and the song is Tom Jones’ Sex Bomb. I have no comment, you’d just have to see it … Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] via For Your Entertainment

In addition to making top-notch costumes and replicas (don’t miss the Lord of the Ring’s Nazgul Armor, Cylon Centurion costume, and Brazil Information Retrieval Mask) conceptual art company Kropserkel also made this awesome severed horse head plush pillow.

Now you can make your friends and enemies a gift they can’t refuse … for only $70!

Link | Kropserkel’s website

Mark Poyser made some awesome diagrams of events, people, and places described in the Bible. That one above (too small to read, so visit the site) is the descendants of Adam as described in the Genesis.

Link

Sunny, a police horse in Humberside, UK, has a sensitive skin that makes him prone to getting sunburns. After asking for help on the Net, a chemist mixed 5 gallon of SPF 50 lotion, which the horse uses everyday now!

Link – via Unique Daily

From Hot Gadgets:

Measuring in at 19cm x 19cm x 39cm our Push Pin Lamp adds a dash of color to all work spaces, or wherever you want to put it for that matter.

The lamp has a cork bottom that is great for sticking notes and reminders, too. Choose from red, orange, blue or green. The light bulb fits right into the push pin head, and to make this sucker light up you just press down on the top of the push pin.

Too bad it’s out of stock right now! Link – via Luxury Housing Trend

What is bossaball?

Bossaball is a ball game between 2 teams. It’s a mix of volleyball, football, gymnastics and capoeira. The court is a combination of inflatables and trampolines, divided by a net.

Link – via Deep Fun

Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Lego. Cardinal Fang put together the scenes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Lego. This one to the left is the fight with the Black Knight:

Black Knight: Oh, had enough, eh?
Arthur: Look, you stupid bastard. You’ve got no arms left.
Black Knight: Yes, I have.
Arthur: Look!
Black Knight: Just a flesh wound.

Link

Andrey Kuznetsov made fantastic lubki (singular lubok), a form of Russian folk arts, inspired by famous Hollywood movies!

Link – via Metafilter

Physicist Stephen Hawking asked this question on Yahoo! Answers:

How can the human race survive the next hundred years?

In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?

And within a few hours, he received over 10,000 answers from regular folks!

Link – via Reality Carnival

Yes, everyone knows that ice floats – but you can actually make heavy ice that sinks to the bottom by using heavy water.

The key to the trick is heavy ice. Many terms shouldn’t be taken literally—a red quark isn’t red, a peanut is neither a pea nor a nut—but heavy water is exactly what it sounds like: water that weighs more than normal. This is possible because elements occur in several different forms, or isotopes, made up of atoms with the same number of protons and electrons (which determine their chemical properties) but a variable number of neutrons (which contribute weight but not much else).

Hydrogen atoms always have one proton and one electron, but only one in every 6,400 has a neutron that nearly doubles the atom¹s mass. Using a complex process called H2S, it¹s possible to isolate this heavy hydrogen, also known as deuterium (D), creating water that¹s about 10 percent heavier than normal.

Chemically, D2O—as it’s written—is real water. Algae can grow and thrive in pure heavy water. Specially raised mice have contained as much as 25 percent heavy hydrogen; beyond that level, subtle biochemical reactions make the heavy mice sick. (Researchers used mice because they are small. Raising a heavy cow would be expensive.)

Link

French architect Jaques Rougerie designed this floating rig that would look right at home in Jules Verne’s story. So far, only a scale model has been built (this whole thing is from 2005), but the real thing will be a huge 51-meter tall floating platform.

The upper part of the Sea Orbiter will be a scientific station for studies of the climate and changes in water and the atmosphere. The station will make wave measurements and calibrate the precise position of satellite trajectories. The underwater part of the new vessel will be equipped with a fish-collection system for studies of the pelagic ecosystem, plankton biodiversity and fish stocks.

Link