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Today’s Bizarro cartoon by Dan Piraro got me thinkin’: who started this whole bit about the mudflap girl?
The silhouette of the sexy woman certainly has worked its way from the back of truck’s mudflap into our pop culture consciousness. Now, you can find countless decals and t-shirts bearing the "trucker girl" figure. It’s even found on soaps, belt buckles, and … pumpkins!
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The mudflap girl even made it into a Super Bowl commercial (2006 ad for Honda Ridgeline, made by design company A52‘s Andy Hall), where she opened the door to the truck and saw another mudflap icon: Yosemite Sam!
Links: Ridgeline’s Super Bowl Ad [YouTube] | Bizarro Comic by Dan Piraro
Scientists at the Sydney University of Technology found that Toxoplasma gondii, a common parasite affecting between 30% to 60% of the world’s population, may have an unusual effect:
"Infected men have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women.
"On the other hand, infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.
"In short, it can make men behave like alley cats and women behave like sex kittens”.
Link – Thanks Andrew H.!
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Salome, an infertile gorilla at the Bristol Zoo Gardens, UK, who suffered from premature menopause gave birth to a baby gorilla after given human fertility treatment!
Following discussions it was decided to lace her yoghurt with crushed up pills containing clomifene, a common fertility drug used by women to kick-start ovulation by blocking the action of the hormone oestrogen.
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Scientists in China said that snakes make better earthquake monitors than fancy-pants equipments:
Scientists said the serpents can sense a quake from 120km (75 miles) away, up to five days before it happens.
They respond erratically, even smashing into walls to escape, scientists said.
"Of all the creatures on the Earth, snakes are perhaps the most sensitive to earthquakes," Jiang Weisong, director of the earthquake bureau in Nanning, told The China Daily.
The reptiles respond by behaving extremely erratically, he said.
"When an earthquake is about to occur, snakes will move out of their nests, even in the cold of winter. If the earthquake is a big one, the snakes will even smash into walls while trying to escape," he told the newspaper.
So, instead of seismographs, the Chinese simply set up video systems monitoring snake nests! Link
Here’re an examples from the BBC’s list of 100 things we didn’t know last year:
The lion costume from the Wizard of Oz was actually made from real lions!
See 99 more fun facts here: Link | The 2005 List
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This year’s Rose Parade will have George Lucas as grand marshal, so naturally, stormtroopers, Royal Guards and other characters will make an appearance:
The scene was surreal — the troupe wore blue jeans, cargo shorts and T-shirts but had donned elaborate helmets of the Imperial forces. On the sidelines was the Darth Vader understudy, preparing in case the real one got sidelined.
They are members of the 501st Legion, an international organization of more than 3,000 people devoted to re-creating scenes from the "Star Wars" movies.
They painstakingly mold, sew and paint costumes to dress up as stormtroopers, Royal Guards and other characters, mostly to realize childhood fantasies — but also to appear at charity events and Civil War-style reenactments.
LA Times Article: Link (Photo by Damon Winter)
Meet Michael Perham, a 14-year-old boy who aims to become the youngest person to sail across the Atlantic by all himself:
A 14-year-old boy aims to make history on New Year’s Day by becoming the youngest person to sail across the Atlantic single handed. Michael Perham set sail from Gibraltar on Nov 18 and is on course to complete the 3,500-mile journey on Monday, when he docks in Antigua.
He started sailing at the age of seven and came up with the idea of the challenge three years ago after watching footage of a previous world record attempt and because, his mother Heather said yesterday, he "loves a challenge".
Bert Myers is a retired physician who studied photography under Ansel Adams. As part of his medical research, Bert worked with X-ray machines and started to use X-ray as his art medium of choice.
See fantastic X-ray images (some in color, too!) of vegetables, minerals, snail shells, and more: Link – via The Huge Entity
Richard Stein’s website has *everything* you’d ever want to know about Japanese Swords, and I mean absolutely everything: Link – via growabrain
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From the website:
The 114 photographs on this site are from Pol Pot’s secret prison, codenamed "S-21" during his genocidal rule (1975-79). Between 1-2 million Cambodians (and many thousands of foreigners) were starved to death, were tortured, or killed, during his brutal reign of terror.
When the Vietnamese invaded in 1979 the S-21 prison staff fled, leaving thousands of written and photographic records. Altogether more than 6,000 photographs were left; the majority have been lost or destroyed.
Link – via metafilter
Surprise! The government can listen to everything you say, even when your cell phone is turned off:
A recent court ruling in a case against the Genovese crime family revealed that the FBI has the ability from a remote location to activate a cell phone and turn its microphone into a listening device that transmits to an FBI listening post, a method known as a "roving bug." Experts say the only way to defeat it is to remove the cell phone battery.
"The FBI can access cell phones and modify them remotely without ever having to physically handle them," James Atkinson, a counterintelligence security consultant, told ABC News. "Any recently manufactured cell phone has a built-in tracking device, which can allow eavesdroppers to pinpoint someone’s location to within just a few feet," he added.
This print ad is for Tide Coldwater detergent, and is captioned:
If everyone in New York City washed their laundry in cold water for just one day, the energy savings could be 5.7 million kwh. Enough to power every light in the Empire State building for an entire month.
A couple more pics at Innings
A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada’s Arctic:
Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.
Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, travelled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw.
"This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead," Vincent said today.
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Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging in Camp Justice, northern Baghdad, Iraq, as punishment for crimes against humanity, following his trial for the 1982 killings of 142 Shia people in Iraq.
The execution was filmed and undoubtedly, given the nature of the Internet, the clip will surface. Whether main TV news channels will show it is a matter of controversy.
Link: Wikipedia | CNN | ABC News
Follow the link below – it has about 20,000 music videos (YouTube from all sorts of bands and singers!) The page may load slowly because of the 20,000 lines of links.
This bus was converted into a ski gondola! Found at Vintage Skiing Photos
See this cute bird play golf and basketball, roll on the floor and even play dead! It should win an Oscar!
Link to Google Video – via Clip A Day
North Carolina police are looking for the criminal who paid for his $150 groceries with this $200 fake bill bearing the image of President Bush at a Food Lion in Roanoke Rapids last September. Remarkably, the cashier accepted the counterfeit note and gave him $50 in change!
Link | See also: Another Fake $200 (that time at Dairy Queen)
In Trondheim, Norway, you don’t have to walk your bike up the hill – just use the bicycle lift! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via reddit
Meet Brandy, who at 6 inches long and less than 2 pounds, is the world’s smallest dog!
For fun, Brandy’s owner puts her in a pink Hawaiian dress. Brandy isn’t allowed on the couch because if she jumped off, she’d break. You don’t pet Brandy so much as rub her with a thumb and forefinger.
She shivers constantly.
But you can’t take this away from Brandy: She is the Smallest Dog in the World.
Meet Bonnie "Xena" Burton, a 15-year-old professional gamer at Gaming Lessons who gave up baby-sitting because she can make more money coaching people how to play the video game Halo:
For coaching, she earns $25 an hour, which meant the teenager could quit baby-sitting local kids. The higher hourly wage could free her to pursue hobbies like horseback riding and dance. But she has almost devoted her entire life to Halo. And she doesn’t date. "Boyfriends are too much of a hassle, especially if they don’t play Halo. And now I can baby-sit an older guy and get 25 bucks," she says. I make baby noises the next time she blows me up.
A Wired article by James Lee: Link
Here’s a fun stop-motion animation using a real chalk and blackboard. Well done! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via How Advertising Spoiled Me
From FunOnTheNet, a collection of corporate logos and their "meanings," like this one from Amazon:
You might think the arrow does nothing here. But it says that amazon.com has everything from a to z and it also represents the smile brought to the customer’s face. Wow, that is quite deep.
Why not drive them crazy by playing the didgeridoo instead? Apparently, it’s a research-supported snoring cure:
Reuters, LONDON: Researchers have discovered that playing the didgeridoo (an ancient wind instrument of the Australian Aborigines) reduces snoring and daytime sleepiness for those with obstructive sleep apnea. The condition occurs when the airway is obstructed during sleep, and results in the sufferer gasping for breath, snoring loudly, snorting and constantly waking up. It carries an increased risk of stroke, heart attacks and high blood pressure. Swiss experts, after hearing anecdotal reports of how playing the didgeridoo reduced snoring, decided to study how it could be applied clinically. They studied 25 patients with moderate obstructive sleep apnea and two with a snoring problem. Half the group were given didgeridoo lessons and asked to practice playing daily at home for four months. The other half were told they were on a waiting list for lessons. Daytime sleepiness and apnea scores improved significantly in the didgeridoo group, the British Medical Journal reported. Partners of patients playing the didgeridoo also reported much less sleep disturbance. "Our results may give hope to the many people with moderate obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and snoring, as well as to their partners," said the researchers. Playing the didgeridoo
requires a controlled breathing pattern, and researchers believe it helps to train the upper airways to combat the symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea.
Photo from SMH
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Pollution? What Pollution? I can’t see a thing! Found at EatLiver
Somehow, the song Mad World [wiki] (originally a Tears for Fears song) by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews fit the game Gears of War perfectly (this is a longer video inspired by the game’s commercial featuring the same song).
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Speed of Silence
Pitchfork has just released their Top 100 Tracks of 2006 – most of these bands are indie, though some famous bands and singers are in it. (You may or may not agree with their No. 1 pick Justin Timberlake).
Anyhow, this one to the left is called The Pipettes – I picked it because the name reminds me of the long, long hours I spent in a biochemistry lab. You can see The Pipette’s Pull Shapes music video YouTube.
Link: Pitchfork’s Top 100 Tracks of 2006 – via Fazed
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