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What seems dreadful today was once considered clever recycling. In the 19th century, it was fashionable to not only display hunting trophies, but to also turn dead animals into useful home furnishings. Sometimes even deceased pets got the treatment. Link to part one. Link to part two. -via Metafilter
Link [YouTube] – via Videofeber
Pouring beer (all the samples you want!), captaining a jet boat, operating a roller coaster … sick of spending your summer trapped behind a desk? Here’s a list of the best summer jobs by ABC World News Webcast: Link
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Richard
Quintana has a dream: "to put some fish in a man’s toilet, so he will never have a boring trip to the pot again."
Here’s the story behind the Fish ‘n Flush:
The Westminster entrepreneur has invented a toilet tank that doubles as an aquarium – with a breath-catching twist: When you flush, it looks like all the water is draining out of the tank and the fish are going down.
It’s an optical illusion. The fish are actually safe in an outer aquarium made of high-polished plastic. What you see draining is the toilet water in a separate tank behind the aquarium.
Watching the tank refill – and the fish merrily swimming, oblivious to any threat – you get the urge to break into applause.
Link (with video) – Thanks Julie Anne Ines!
See also: Toilet-O-Rama (a huge compendium of toilet-related stuff, a co-blogging with Miss Cellania – and yes, there’s an aquarium toilet made by a different guy there)
Brickshelf user Dunechaser has an awesome collection of musical minifigs inspired by bands, composers, and musicians:
Link (or see this Flickr photoset) – via Lego Mania, thanks ATiiiLA!
Kure Kure Takora, which roughly translates to Gimme Gimme Octopus is a strange Japanese children TV show. According to this Wikipedia entry, the big red octopus:
… employs a type of Ninjitsu where he can turn into anything from a dopey iguana to a vacuum cleaner to a guitar. His best-friend is the weak-willed squash Chonbo. While friends he has no problems leaving him for dead if he has to make a fast getaway. Like everyone else in the world, Kure Kure is in love with the fickle pink walrus Monro. His greatest fear is being doused with vinegar and being served as Sudako (pickled octopus).
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Mr. Reasonably Green!
Researchers using NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex) space telescope found this strange star with a very long tail (13 light years long, in fact!)
Astronomers say Mira’s tail offers a unique opportunity to study how stars like our sun die and ultimately seed new solar systems. Mira is an older star called a red giant that is losing massive amounts of surface material. As Mira hurtles along, its tail sheds carbon, oxygen and other important elements needed for new stars, planets and possibly even life to form. This tail material, visible now for the first time, has been released over the past 30,000 years.
The bizarreness that is space continues to amaze me: Link – via Boing Boing
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Turns out, squirrels have a secret weapon against rattlesnakes:
Infrared video showed that California ground squirrels’ tails warmed by several degrees, up to 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), when threatened by northern Pacific rattlesnakes, which detect the infrared glow from small mammals using so-called pit organs in their noses. [...]
Why? Adult squirrels are resistant to rattlesnake poison, and though they can totally kick the snakes’ butts (do snakes have butts?), they prefer just to warn ‘em off:
Flagging alone probably reminds snakes of past squirrel lashings, Rundus says. "It’s a conspicuous signal that you’ve been detected and you’re probably going to be harassed," he notes, "and potentially harmed if you stay in this area." The researchers add that a heated tail may make the squirrel appear larger and more intimidating, and would be more visible at night than during the heat of the day.
Stumped by a test question? Would you:
A) Put a whole bunch of equations and hope for partial credit, you smarmy kid you …
B) Write or draw something outrageous and go for comedic gold!
Here’s a bunch of actual answers given to teachers by very bold students: Link – via Say No to Crack
The Wake-up Angel pictured to the left is an "ear alarm" that vibrates to wake you up if you happen to fall asleep when you really shouldn’t (like when driving or studying):
You place it behind the ear and if your head angle turns 30 degrees or lower, the Wake-up Angel will vibrate. There are four different levels to adjust at what angle the vibrator should be activated.
Neatorama has many posts about global warming, which is generally agreed upon by today’s scientists as real and a cause for concern.
But did you know that in the 1970s, the concern was the exact opposite? Here’s a story about global cooling:
INTRODUCING Newsweek’s Aug. 13 cover story on global warming "denial," editor Jon Meacham brings up an embarrassing blast from his magazine’s past: an April 1975 story about global cooling, and the coming ice age that scientists then were predicting. Meacham concedes that "those who doubt that greenhouse gases are causing significant climate change have long pointed to the 1975 Newsweek piece as an example of how wrong journalists and researchers can be." But rather than acknowledge that the skeptics may have a point, Meacham dismisses it.
"On global cooling," he writes, "there was never anything even remotely approaching the current scientific consensus that the world is growing warmer because of the emission of greenhouse gases."
Really? Newsweek took rather a different line in 1975. Then, the magazine reported that scientists were "almost unanimous" in believing that the looming Big Chill would mean a decline in food production, with some warning that "the resulting famines could be catastrophic." Moreover, it said, "the evidence in support of these predictions" — everything from shrinking growing seasons to increased North American snow cover — had "begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it."
Link: Boston Globe Editorial | The Article at Extreme Mortman | Newsweek’s Global Warming Cover Story – via Scribal Terror
Deputydog blog has a really neat article about the strangest airports of the world, like this one above: The World’s Shortest Commercial Runway
the runway at saba’s airport is an insanely brief 400 metres long. there’s also no room for error when you land there as each end of the runway is met by a drop and then water. for this reason it’s considered by many to be the most dangerous runway on earth and commercial planes need to get special permission to land on the strip.
Link – via Miss Cellania
Contemporary Heaven has a neat collection of lights for children, like the adorable “Ruby The Caterpillar Pendant Light” featured above.
Link – via Design Milk
Today’s collaboration with What is it? blog brings us this strange looking tool – can you guess what it is? More clues and another photo at What is it? blog.
Place your guess in the comment section, but please post no URLs – let others play! No prize this week, you’re playing for bragging rights only.
Technically, no one got it right, but there are a couple of good guesses (booby trap, trip wire gun) and one really close one (gopher trap). Here’s the answer:
Anti-rodent device or mouse killer pistol, invented in 1862. To operate: Pull back the hammer and insert the safety, place a percussion cap on the nipple, load 10 grains of black powder into the barrel along with some paper wadding, put some peanut butter on the bottom of the trigger, place the device in a good location, set the sear, and finally, remove the safety.
In this excellent video clip, John Kristensen of Firefly Press in Massachusetts tells us about the beauty and craftmanship of traditional typography: the letterpress printing.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via all of the above
Not only Flickr user micsalac is playing not just any air guitar – it’s one made from photons! Link [Flickr] – via therror
In our Funny Business Name: WTF post, Neatorama reader Mel told us about a trade publication called the Official Meeting Facilities Guide or … OMFG.
Here it is – behold the OMFG magazine!
No, that’s not Death Star – rather, it’s a strange walnut-shaped moon of Saturn. Scientists have just solved the mystery of its weird shape:
There’s a strange moon whizzing around Saturn that’s shaped, oddly, like a walnut.
Now astronomers find that Iapetus got its nutty shape from a super-fast spin that was frozen into place early in the solar system’s formation.
When the Cassini spacecraft snapped close-ups of Saturn’s moons in 2005, it revealed a bulging waistline of rock along the equator of the now slowly spinning Iapetus. Astronomers think this characteristic shape persists because Iapetus was cryogenically frozen in time about 3 billion years ago, during the moon’s "teen" years.
"Iapetus spun fast, froze young and left behind a body with lasting curves," said Julie Castillo, a Cassini scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
