In 1962, cinematographer Morton Heilig invented a machine he called the Sensorama, which was:

an immersive 3-D virtual reality motorbike ride, in a form factor resembling an arcade game. Heilig saw Sensorama as the future of cinema, an immersive experience, complete with nine different fans to simulate the wind blowing on the user’s face, vibrating seat (to simulate driving over cobblestones), and the aromas of jasmine and hibiscus as the driver passed a flower garden, or the smell of baking pizza as one passed by an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn.

This predecessor of all modern virtual reality devices died a quiet death, when Heilig couldn’t get funding.

Link – via Kircher Society

Alain Viel and Robert A. Lue of Harvard University created a very neat flash movie clip on the many biochemical processes that go on inside our cells.

Very, very, very cool: Link [Flash] | Explanation of the animation – via metafilter

CyberNet has the top ten list of best Xbox 360 case mods – this one above is the battle-worn xbox. Link – via Gizmodo

See also: Neatorama’s Ultimate Case Mod List

Many, many more weird signs at the Chinglish flickr pool – via growabrain.

From the website:

One of our readers (okay, it was my friend Lisa) noticed a mention of “National Hangover Day” in our new-holiday contest — a day of bleary-eyed and queasy celebration on which “V8 will be vastly discounted.” Lisa wanted to know why V8 juice and other tomato products seem to cure hangovers — and, as an ardent subscriber to that theory, I did too! It seems the theory hasn’t been fully tested by science, but there are several reasons a big glass of the red stuff might help on a rough morning …

Mental_floss has got the answer: Link

Here’s the recipe for spam mousse shaped like a table of Viagra. Yum! Link – via Cynical-C

Albanian artist Saimir Strati hammered tens of thousands of nails into a wooden board to create the world’s largest nail mosaic, in the image of Leonardo da Vinci.

"I have lost count of the nails, but I think it was around 400 kilos (880 pounds) of nails. I have used different nails. The condition was they should be industrial nails and they are," Strati said.

"My technique resembles (digital) camera pixels. I have used a nail for each pixel," he told Reuters

AOL News – via Arbroath

Say you’re in a maximum security prison, but you really want a cell phone and you want it real bad. What to do? Maybe this:

Capt. Juan Ramon Arevalo, director of the prison known as Zacatras, said the gang members had introduced the cell phones, wrapped in plastic bags, into their bodies through their anuses. Authorities also found nine cell phone chips and one charger.

"Each one had a cellular with a number of chips," Arevalo said, adding that one also had hidden a charger in his anal cavity.

Link

Lydia Fairchild was facing an uphill battle in court to prove that she’s the mother to her children. Fairchild was about to lose her children; Social Services accused her of welfare fraud and was about to take her children away from her.

No one believed that she was the mother to her children because her DNA didn’t match theirs – and DNA, the court said, didn’t lie.

But in this case, turned out that it did – Lydia had a rare disorder called chimerism: she was a chimera (she had different DNAs in her tissues) – essentially she was her own twin.

Read more of this weird medical mystery: Link

Within hours of the first report that Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray’s barb through the heart, traffic surge clobbered Australian news websites:

Web measurement company Hitwise said Irwin’s death was the biggest news event read by Australians on the Internet since two Australian miners were trapped by a mine collapse in southern Tasmania state in late April.

"We noticed that the Web site www.crocodilehunter.com increased in popularity quite substantially. It became the number one entertainment personality Web site in Australia yesterday and in the United States it also became the third most popular," Hitwise Asia-Pacific marketing director James Borg told Reuters.

Australian news Web sites struggled to keep up with demand.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s site (www.abc.com.au) had to temporarily shut down, posting a notice Monday that it was experiencing higher than normal traffic.

The news of Steve Irwin’s death also caused the blogosphere to go into hyperdrive – within a day, there were nearly 22,000 blog posts on the subject in a day, according to Technorati. Not to be outdone, many YouTubers started posting their own tribute clips.

But while the world mourns, not everyone had only kind words about Steve – Australian columnist Germaine Greer disparaged Steve’s behavior (including when he went into a crocodile enclosure with his month-old baby) in her article "That sort of self-delusion is what it takes to be a real Aussie larrikin." Claymation video clip of Steve battling Medusa (with an eerie premonition of the wound that killed him) appeared on YouTube (no direct link – although the animation was done prior to Steve’s death – I think it’s just in bad taste, if you want to see it, search for it on YouTube).

Thankfully, harsh and indecent reactions were far and few in between – most of us think highly of Steve Irwin, his lovable show, and his contribution to animal conservation. We will miss him terribly.

CNN Article on the effect of Steve’s Death on the Web | Steve Irwin [wikipedia]

Previously on Neatorama: Stingray Killed Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter

From the website:

This barely recognisable snake bit off more than it could chew when it snacked a pregnant ewe.

The six-metre python weighing 90 kg was too laden to move, making it far easier for firemen to capture it in a Malaysian village.

Link – via Arbroath

Ah, how cute! A beatboxing parrot! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Miss Cellania

Related: Lasse Gjertsen’s Hyperactive – how beatboxing should be done.

Lore has it that the British military conceived the idea of a dummy paratrooper in 1938 – since then, decoy paradummies have been used in various military operations to confuse the enemy.

From the website:

Oddly, these 18" U.S. test dummies were molded with the appearance of tiny pilots (as opposed to looking like regular paratroopers.) Their nicely molded features included a pilot-style helmet, heavy jacket with thick collar and two large front pockets, short neck scarf, thick gloves, heavy pants tucked into tall boots, and arms folded up against the chest as if gripping a parachute harness.

The overall effect appears to resemble an old-fashioned pilot, in heavy flight garb, who has "bailed out." These dummies also have a slight resemblance to the famous Hollywood "Oscar" statuette which is given out at the Academy Awards. It is possible that this is why the paradummy first got it’s nickname "Oscar."

Link – via Look at This …

What happens when the driver of a semi-tractor trailer hauling a track hoe excavator on a flatbed misjudged the clearance at an overpass?

Snopes confirmed this email that’s going ’round the Interweb: Link – Thanks Kandra!

Philps showcased their LED-integrated fabric at the 2006 IFA Electronics show in Berlin.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Liberal Avenger!

This year’s corn maze at the Warner Farm (Mike’s Maze) in Sunderland, Massachusetts is a giant portrait of the famous chef Julia Child!

Fantastic! Link – Thanks Mark Lengowski!

Neatorama reader Lorrie Davis wrote about her website Pop Life Art:

Pop Life Art contains a comprehensive listing of celebrities (actors, singers, musicians, athletes, etc.) that create fine art paintings, drawings and photographs. I believe that it contains the most complete listing of celebrity artists on the web. It includes links to the artists’ websites and online galleries where their artwork can be viewed and purchased. I currently have more than 50 celebrities listed, including Ronnie Wood, Paul McCartney, Grace Slick, Pierce Brosnan, Viggo Mortensen, and many more.

The photo on the left is Ringo Starr posing in front of his artwork.

Link – Thanks Lorrie!