This cleverly humorous illustration was done by Seymour Chwast for the book Design Humor: The Art of Graphic Wit by Steve Heller. Found at BookLust.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation fans rejoice – here is the website where you can buy those awesome moose mugs: Link – via The Green Head

What is it? It’s an extension cord shaped like fish skeleton! The male plug is at its head, and the female plug is at its tail.

Link

This has got to be one of the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen: a scat identification guide, printed on a scarf (or bandanna) made by Acord Naturalists.

This unique educational scarf features scat drawings that are twice life size, sketched from samples found in the field. Includes: ringtail, shrew, bat, racoon, armadillo, opossum, mouse and vole, bear, rabbit and hare, prairie dog, porcupine, squirrel and chipmunk, gopher, marmot and woodchuck, beaver, muskrat, pronghorn antelope, fox, weasel, mountain lion, bobcat, mountain goat, river otter, pine marten, skunk, mink, badger, wolverine, bighorn sheep, elk, deer and moose. This wearable field guide is great for field trips, hikes, or as a conversation piece. Measures 21 inches square.

Link

Vegiforms are clear plastic mold that you can put on a growing vegetable, like a zucchini or a melon, and make it conform to the shape of the mold!

VegiForms are available in five basic shapes: the Garden Elf, the Pickle Pusses, and Ear of Corn; and, for the gourmet gardener, the Heart and Diamond, which yield heart and diamond shaped slices when cut.

Link – via Boing Boing

Found at tombland’s photostream: Link [flickr]

Chris Natrop’s hand-cut paper artwork mimics the intricacy of spider webs! This one’s titled White White Mayday in Mustard and Gold (I know, I know … artist!)

Link – (Don’t miss a piece called Fern Space Burst!)

Jeff Hapeman took this amazing photo of a green aurora over Lake Superior, Michigan. From APOD:

What if your horizon was green? If you’ve got a camera, take a picture! That was the experience of Jeff Hapeman last week when visiting the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan. On a quiet night toward the northern horizon over Lake Superior was a long lasting diffuse green aurora. The above image was taken in an effort to capture the sense of wonder one gets when watching an auroral display. Auroras are sparked by energetic particles from the Sun impacting the magnetic environment around the Earth. Resultant energetic particles such as electrons and protons rain down near the Earth’s poles and impact the air. The impacted air molecules temporarily lose electrons, and when oxygen molecules among them reacquire these electrons, they emit green light. Auroras are known to have many shapes and colors.

Link

From the website:

A police officer described yesterday how he pulled over a motorist who was veering across the road and found that he had no eyes.

Omed Aziz, who lost both his eyes in a bomb blast and is also deaf, was caught behind the wheel with a friend sitting in the passenger seat giving him instructions on when to steer and brake, and how quickly to drive.

Aziz, who also suffers from leg tremors, claimed he was perfectly safe and denied a charge of dangerous driving before being convicted.

Link

Previously on Neatorama: Armless Driver Arrested Again and Again.

David Klenerman of Cambridge University created a ground-breaking technique of … nano doodling!

It is highly accurate, but there is something unusual about this image of the Cambridge University crest.

The picture is about the width of a human hair, and is made up entirely of gently fluorescing DNA. …

The new Cambridge method, called Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy, is described by Dr Klenerman as a major breakthrough.

"It’s like an electron micrograph with live cells," he said. "It opens up the possibility of watching biology at the nanoscale."

Link

From the website:

Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them — now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy.

Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even e-mails.

Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone.

"The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

"The odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one."

Link

Tired of an illegal squatter moving onto his land complete with car and a mobile home, farmer Alan Roberts decided to evict the guy – with a forklift!

While the illegal tenant was still soundly asleep, Mr Roberts got into his yellow JCB forklift and prepared to teach him a lesson.

First, he picked up the man’s burgundy Vauxhall Cavalier from its spot on one of his fields and dumped it unceremoniously outside his land. Then he returned to scoop up the white caravan, still housing the unsuspecting squatter.

As it was lifted into the air, the man, in his 20s, appeared at the window looking rather groggy and startled to discover he was suddenly airbourne.

Link – via Arbroath

Pier Ferrari at the University of Parma, Italy, and colleagues finally proved the old saying "monkey see, monkey do":

Pier Ferrari at the University of Parma, Italy, and colleagues tested 21 newborn macaques by holding each in front of a researcher who made various facial expressions.

At one day old, none of the infants showed any imitation. By day three, however, infants started to copy the researchers’ expressions, including tongue protrusions, mouth opening and lip smacking – all typical macaque expressions.

Link

In 1931, Nikola Tesla, the inventor of the alternating current and the holder of some 1,200 patents installed a mysterious box in the front seat of the Pierce-Arrow touring car:

The box is said to have been 24 inches long, 12 inches wide and 6 inches high. Out of it protruded a 1.8 meter long antenna and two ¼ inch metal rods. Inside the box was reputed to be some dozen vacuum tubes — 70-L-7 type — and other electrical parts. Two wire leads ran from the box to a newly-installed 40 inch long, 30 inch diameter AC motor that replaced the gasoline engine.

As the story goes, Tesla inserted the two metal rods and announced confidently, "We now have power" and then proceeded to drive the car for a week, "often at speeds of up to 90 mph."

Link – via Fortean Times

If there is such a thing as over-recycling, then this is it: a briefcase made from recycled insecticide box!

Link

Piece Unique Gallery has an amazing collection of photographs from the Vietnam War, titled: Under Fire: Images from Vietnam.

This particular one was taken by Robert Ellison, titled "Marines running for cover, 1968," showing marines running for cover during North Vietnamese attack in Khe San.

Link | Piece Unique Gallery – via Babbo

These kids must watch the Pythagoras Switch Japanese TV show a lot, so they made a fantastic homemade Rube Goldbergian device inspired by the show.

What is this pythagoras switch anyhow?

In Japanese pitagorasuichi is how say in engrish Pythagoras Switch. Despite that mouthful of a name, this educational television show on NHK is a quite fun science program for kids (like me). Watch the Google-Video of the “beautiful mechanism” program segment in which the “Pitagora device” goes into action.

So what is the “Pitagora device” all about? The show targets four to six year old children to help foster and develop their powers of of thinking. Here’s my loose translation of the mission statement the “Pythagoras Switch” children’s show…. From 3Yen

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | Pythagoras Switch clips at Transbuddha