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The MacArthur and Sloan foundations have given a total $12.5 million to pay for the first 2 1/2 years of the massive effort, but it will be free and accessible to everyone.
The pages can be adjusted so that they provide useful information for both a schoolchild and a research biologist alike, with an emphasis on encouraging “citizen-scientists” to add their sightings. While amateurs can contribute in clearly marked side pages, the key detail and science parts of the encyclopedia will be compiled and reviewed by experts.
This video shows how it will work. Push play or go to YouTube. Link to website. Link to news article.
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Who could eat after finding what appears to be an alligator snout in their canned catfish? Yummy. Link [xigre]
Not many people think of Dubai — where it often hits 120 F — as a winter wonderland, but inside of this
is this
More info at Ski Dubai
From Musings of a Pertinacious Papist, via Mirabilis
The printing process begins with a bed of a granular printing media that has a fairly low melting point. Using a narrow, directed, low-velocity beam of hot air, we selectively fuse together the print media, forming a two-dimensional image out of the fused grains. We then lower the bed by a small amount, add a thin flat layer of media to the top of the bed, and selectively fuse the media in the new layer, forming a two dimensional image that is also fused to any overlapping fused areas in the layer below. By repeating this process, a three-dimensional object is slowly built up. At the end of the build, the bed is raised to its original position, disinterring the fabricated model, while unused media is reclaimed for use in building the next object.
The Candyfab 4000 will make its public debut next week at the 2007 Bay Area Maker Faire. Link
Discovery Channel reports:
A team of French and Austrian scientists found that cows relax, to the Handlers stroked 30 Brown Swiss and 30 Austrian Simmental cows in The researchers observed that the cows stretched out their necks and
point that their heart rate lowers, when petted in body regions they
often target when grooming each other. . . .
three different body regions: the top of the back, just above and below
the neck, and along the side of the chest. Cow heart rates were monitored during the sessions. A control cow group experienced a human presence but no stroking.
let their ears fall — signs of deep relaxation — when stroked in parts
of the upper back and the neck areas that cows often reach when they
lick each other. Lower heart rates confirmed these observations.
Photo credit: AP
A pair of falcons (named Jose Fernando and Clara) are nesting in the city hall of San Jose, California. They’ve just hatched a couple of chicks!
The good people of the City of San Jose and the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group have set up a live webcam for all of us to see the cute birdies.
Link – Thanks Dan Henderson!
Father and son team Thomas and Stuart Mitchell have deciphered a musical score hidden in mysterious symbols carved 600 years ago into the arches of a church featured in "The Da Vinci Code":
Years of research led the Mitchells to an ancient musical system called cymatics, or Chladni patterns, which are formed by sound waves at specific pitches.
The two men matched each of the patterns on the carved cubes to a Chladni pitch, and were able finally to unlock the melody.
The Mitchells have called the piece The Rosslyn Motet and added words from a contemporary hymn to complete it.
Links: Reuters article | Thomas Mitchell’s website – Thanks David R!
We’ve previously blogged about The People’s History, a website dedicated to history as remembered by ordinary people.
Here’s a video of Ed Kinowski from Amsterdam, NY, reminiscing about what it was like to grow up in the years of the Great Depression.
We lived in a poor section of Amsterdam New York and for Christmas my mother gave me a little red wagon, I knew that we were poor so I just made it a point to go into the city and to go into the back yards of furniture stores and so forth to pick up these boxes for heating and I remember one day I was near a police station and the policeman took my hand and I thought he was going to arrest me for taking these boxes and instead he put a bushel of food into my wagon and I thought that was pretty good so we had some food.
Link [Google Video] – Thanks Steve Pearson!
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If you’re interested, or if you posted a message before and didn’t receive an invite, please post a comment here on this post.
If you don’t know what Joost is all about, take a look at this video called “What’s Joost?” in Quicktime/.mov format.
Finally, as the sending of invites has been rather time consuming, I have a no-pressure, “Tips cheerfully accepted via PayPal” policy active at the moment. So if you want to help offset my time for doing this – or you wish to jump to the head of the queue, my PayPal address is astanhope@gmail.com
Joost has just released an updated Beta version – 0.10.2 – and they’ve added some more great content, including Robot Chicken, one of my favorites!
Enjoy!
Update: As of 7:30PM, Thursday, May 10, Neatorama and I have sent 1141 Joost invites!
The Price Is Right [wiki] is a television game show, originally created by Bob Stewart, then an employee of Goodson-Todman Productions in the United States.
The 1972 American version, hosted by Bob Barker [wiki], is still currently airing as of May 2007 on CBS and is believed to be the second longest-running game show on television, trailing only the Spanish-language variety show Sábado Gigante; it is also the longest running five-days-a-week game show in the world. (Wheel of Fortune began its syndicated run in 1983, and Jeopardy! followed in 1984.) The Price Is Right is one of only two game show franchises to be seen nationally in either first-run network or syndication airings in the US in every decade from the 1950s onward; the other is To Tell the Truth, another show created by Bob Stewart for Goodson-Todman.
Click play or go to Link [YouTube].
Hello everyone,
For a couple of weeks, I haven’t been putting up as many posts on Neatorama as I used to (besides the pre-scheduled posts). No, I wasn’t in jail – rather, I was away on a family emergency: my father had a stroke. Thankfully, the stroke was mild and he is recovering well. Nevertheless, it was a very serious matter that gave us many sleepless nights.
I’ve just returned home, and am trying to catch up on work, postings and emails. For those of you who sent me emails and I haven’t responded, please be patient – I’m getting to ‘em! I may have to go back, so I apologize in advance for future lack of postings / email response.
After thinking about it for a while, I decided to write this personal post because what I’m about to tell you may save your life or the life of someone you love. Please take a minute to read a little about stroke and its symptoms.
Basically, a stroke is a "brain attack," where blood flow to the brain is interrupted. In the United States alone, someone has a stroke every 45 seconds. Every 3 minutes, someone dies from it. It is the third leading cause of death in the country – and sadly, an overwhelming number of stroke cases are actually preventable.
Knowing the symptoms of stroke will allow you to react and get help as quickly as possible:
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Sudden Numbness in One Side of the Body Sudden Vision Trouble Sudden Confusion or Trouble Speaking Sudden Trouble Walking, Loss of Balance Sudden Headache |
In cases of transient ischemic attack (TIA or mini-stroke), these symptoms may disappear on their own. The person experiencing them often try to minimize the symptoms or ignore them completely. They will often discourage you from calling for help. This is a big mistake: one-third of them will go on to have an actual debilitating stroke.
If you think someone is having a stroke, remember to act F.A.S.T, which is a clever acronym for:
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In many cases, stroke is completely preventable and you can lower your risk for a first stroke. Start by knowing your blood pressure, cholesterol level, whether you have diabetes and/or heart disorders. See: National Stroke Association.
Lastly, please schedule an annual physical with your doctor, if you haven’t been to one recently. I know all of the excuses, we’ve all used them to avoid the doctor:
I feel fine.
Indeed, my father felt perfectly healthy until the minute he got a stroke. Remember, there may be NO warning sign for your first stroke.I don’t have the time, I’m too busy at work.
A couple hours of going to see your doctor vs. a couple of weeks (at least) or months of recovery, if you’re lucky to survive a stroke. You’ll have to re-learn talking, walking, eating … everything. Going to the bathroom? Yep – you’ve got to learn (again) how to do that too …I don’t like getting prodded.
A few uncomfortable minutes vs. …. Let’s not get into what they’ll do to you in the hospital if you’re ever in one for a stroke.I don’t have the money to see a doctor.
Having a stroke is very expensive. Preventing one is cheap.I don’t want to know if I’m sick, I’d rather just die.
This is not a terminal illness. You can do something to prevent it. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for someone you love. Plus, you don’t just die – you suffer first (and maybe for a very long time) before you die.
Please tell your family and friends. Email this post. Print this out, post it on your cubicle. Whatever you can do to prevent a stroke or save someone’s life (maybe yours too).
Meet Booger, Kitty and Mousie, who perform with their owner Greg Pike in a very cute "dog, cat, and mouse" balancing act:
This is Booger, Kitty and Mousie. Booger is the dog, Kitty the cat and Mousie, naturally, the mouse.
The entire balancing act belongs to Greg Pike, a popular street performer known as the "dog-cat-mouse guy" to locals in Bisbee, a remote US town two miles north of the Mexico-Arizona border.
Pike is a familiar fixture on Bisbee’s streets, where he stops on the footpath, stacks his pets atop one another and sets out a basket for donations.
Nasal irrigation is as gross looking as it sounds. Here’s Drew of Toothpaste for Dinner (he also made the very funny website Married to the Sea we’ve featured on Neatorama before) irrigating his nasal passages.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Christopher Kohl!
