Archive for November, 2007
A Cure for Zombies?
According to New Scientist, researchers at Ben-Gurion University have cured zombie-stricken cockroaches. Other scientists, however, are skeptical of the applicability of this cure to our own species due to the increased complexity of the human brain.
Thanks Holy Pirate!
Evel Knievel dies at 69
The man every boy wanted to be in the 1970’s, star-spangled stunt man Evel Knievel, has died. He was 69.
Knievel’s death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years. He suffered from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs, as well as the hepatitis C he likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills.
Details of his passing can be read here.
Top 5 Viral Videos of 2007: Your Pick?
Neatorama has featured almost a thousand videos so far this year!
We are going to do an end-of-the-year countdown of the Top 5 Viral Videos in conjunction with the ABC World News Webcast.
Now we have the task of ranking the videos, and we need your help. Below you’ll find a poll of the 18 most popular videos on Neatorama this year. The titles are links to the videos to refresh your memory. For the next few days, you can vote for up to five of your favorites. Thanks in advance!
[poll=2]
Home Ballpit
After producing a comic on the concept, Randall Munroe of xkcd put a ball pit in his home! How cool is that? Link -via Grow-A-Brain
Caged Monkey
Photo: Li Feng
National Geographic has just chosen the winners of its International Photography Contest. Out of 148,203 images submitted, this particular one above by Chinese photographer Li Feng won for the category Animal - International.
Caged monkeys await their fate at a medical laboratory in Hubei Province, China. The judges liked that this image subverted the usual “romanticized” approach to wildlife photography, and more accurately reflected the fate of many of the world’s animals. The sneaker at the top provides scale and injects humanity into the scene; the anonymity of its wearer suggests concealment and complicity. The structure of the cages, the horror of the captivity, the crowded composition, and the claustrophobic tension all add up to a very sad and compelling photo.
See the winners here: Link [Flash] - Thanks Marilyn Terrell!
Graveyard Shift May Cause Cancer
Is working graveyard shift dangerous to your health? Maybe so, if scientists for the International Agency for Research on Cancer are right:
Like UV rays and diesel exhaust fumes, working the graveyard shift will soon be listed as a "probable" cause of cancer.
It is a surprising step validating a concept once considered wacky. And it is based on research that finds higher rates of breast and prostate cancer among women and men whose work day starts after dark.
Next month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, will add overnight shift work as a probable carcinogen.
I am so doomed (but still can’t resist putting the O RLY "night owl" photo): Link - via Blue’s News
Polonium Pen
What to give your Russian-political-dissident-running-away-from-Putin friend?
How about this: Polonium Pen by Charles Wenzel of Techlib. It’s basically a portable ion chamber hooked up to an LED light. The gadget will detect radioactive elements in your food and drinks.
Note, if you DO have such a friend, I suggest you don’t dine with them frequently if at all.
How Water is Rendered in Computer Games
PC Games Hardware website has a neat gallery of the evolution of how computer games render water. It’s quite interesting how they go from the simplistic lines of Flight Simulator (1982) to highly detailed renderings in modern games.
The small pic to the left is from Treasure Island Dizzy, a 1987 game for the Commodore 64.
The Fight Over Grandma’s Money
Revealed to be part of an advertising campaign placed by the Periodical Publishers Association of Ireland. The ad was placed in an attempt to show how magazine advertising is still effective. Brilliant!
Chat Noir
Try to keep the cat from escaping the field by clicking on a spot. I’ve played this game every time I’ve seen it posted somewhere, and after dozens of attempts, I finally won. Until now, I wasn’t sure if it was possible! Link
Nine Ways to Eat Gold
Gold is often used as decoration and to add a bit of opulence to a luxurious meal. Often a fresh sprig of parsley cannot compare to the shine of gold. Beyond appearances many people believe that gold, if ingested, offers a wide array of health benefits. Today, fine dining chefs everywhere add gold to their signature dishes to add a lavish element. While gold is actually tasteless, it does impress and allows restaurants and manufacturers to charge exorbitant amounts of money for routinely mundane products.
Trifter has compiled a list of 9 impressive gold-laced consumables.
Pencil Bench
Boex 3D Creative Solutions designed this award winning quirky bench. The seat is made up of 1600 pencils which are individually sprung. Each pencil can be removed and used.
Source: Boex
Ted and Anna get Engaged
(YouTube link)
Two crew members for the TV show Scrubs fell in love. When it came time to pop the question, the whole set was ready. I’m a sap for this sort of thing. -via a comment at mental_floss
2010 Olympics Mascots
Vancouver is hosting the Winter Games in 2010. The Olympic mascots will be Sumi the Thunderbird, Quatchi the Sasquatch, and Miga the Sea Bear, all mythical North American creatures. The artwork was designed by Vicki Wong and Michael Murphy of Meomi Design. Even without considering previous Olympic mascots, they hit this one out of the ballpark! Link -via Boing Boing
Bracelet Found In Chicken after 25 Years
More than two decades after Aaron Giles lost his identity bracelet, he’s finding how it was discovered tough to swallow.
A meat cutter at Olson Locker in Fairmont came across the shiny object in a chicken gizzard and saw a name, address and phone number engraved on it.
Giles had lived in Fairmont as a child and played hide-and-seek and other games with his brothers in their grandfather’s barn near Sherburn.
“I would spend most of my time out at his farm, and that’s the only place I can think of that I would have lost it,” Giles said about his bracelet on Thursday. The 31-year-old said he thinks the bracelet was lost when he was 4 or 5.
The barn was dismantled a few years ago, and Giles thinks his bracelet was imbedded in materials used to construct another barn in Elmore, about 45 miles away.
The bracelet was found in a chicken that came from an Elmore farm. Olson was able to track down Giles’ father and return the bracelet.
“It was in pretty immaculate shape. Everything was working on it, and all the engravings on it were still legible,” Giles said. “It was quite the surprise.”
Via: News10
Yay! Free Stuff for Neatorama’s Top Commenters
Woot! Thanks to our pal Vat19, three lucky Neatorama readers are getting an early Christmas present: LightWedge LED Book Light. This neat gadget lets you read a book at night without disturbing anyone else in the room because the light is directed only onto the page.
Now this wasn’t a contest: no one was told beforehand about it. The winners are three of the top commenters on the blog for November of 2007. They didn’t know that there was a prize for commenting. It’s a complete suprise!
Here’s a screen grab as of the time I made this post in the wee hours of the last day of November (Sorry Vonskippy! Missed it by a little bit… ).
This is our way of saying thanks for participating and making the blog interesting by commenting. So congratulations to Chris, ted, and algonkin!
Will we do this again? Yes, but I won’t tell you when … it could be next week, next month, or further in the future … but here’s a hint: although you don’t have to pre-register to comment, the next winners will be registered users of the blog! (Register here - it’s fast and easy)
If you didn’t win, you can still visit Vat19 to buy this and other cool gadgets for Christmas. Congrats again, guys, and thank you to everyone for reading/commenting on Neatorama!
History’s Bad Eggs
The Jupiter Drawing Room ad agency created these very creative ads for South African egg company Nulaid. The ads all say "History’s produced a lot of bad eggs. Thankfully, ours are always good."
See the larger pics: Link
The “Singing” Highway in South Korea
Driving down the highway in South Korea can be a musical experience (just enough to get your attention, in case you’re sleepy or not paying attention):
The road is carved into thousands of grooves. When the car tire hits the grooves, the vibrations turn into a sound source. It makes different tunes depending on the size of the grooves … The rhythm is controlled by the lengh of the groove. For example to get one second of the "do" note, the groove is stretched 28 meters.
Link [ABC World News Webcast by Joo Hee Choo]
Man Tried to Open Bank Account with … $1 Million Bill!
Just a month after man tried to get change for a million bucks, another one went into a bank to open an account with the same fake bill:
… Alexander D. Smith, 31, of Augusta, Ga., wasn’t charged with stupidity, but he was arrested and accused of forgery and disorderly conduct. (He cursed bank workers after the teller in Clearwater, S.C., wouldn’t take his funny money.)
Never has been a $1 million bill. The largest U.S. greenback ever was $100,000 back in the 1930s.
Link (Photo: AP)
Nuclear Warhead Cozy by Elizabeth Demaray
I can only imagine that when artist Elizabeth Demaray saw a Nike-Hercules nuclear warhead sitting on its launchpad, she thought "hm, it looked kinda cold." So she created a "cozy" from 88 yards of quilted satin!
The 12 Days of Kitschmas
Don’t know what to get someone for Christmas? How about some really kitschy gift, like this Jesus on a motorcycle? Or a pin cushion shaped like St. Sebastian?
Those, and more on Telegraph’s 12 Days of Kitschmas gallery, featuring some really, really tasteless Chrismas gifts: Link
Quote: Victor Borge on Santa Claus
"Santa Claus has the right idea: visit people once a year"
- Victor Borge, comedian and pianist (1909 - 2000)
Emma Luna’s Ceramic Terry Cloths Sculpture
If you’re wondering why this stack of purple terry cloths made by artist Emma Luna is doing on Neatorama, then she’d done her job well. You see, those aren’t actually cloths - it’s a ceramic sculpture made to look just like the real things!
Should This Lottery Winner Get to Keep the Money?
Timothy Elliott may just be the unluckiest lottery winner. He beat the odds of 1 in 1,247,400 to win $1 million in a scratch ticket, but he won’t beat the odd of getting busted.
See, Elliott is still on probation for two bank robberies. And the terms of his probation clearly stated: no gambling!
And of course, there are opposing views about this:
"That’s absurd!" said Edina Russ, of Yarmouthport. "Whatever he had done in the past has nothing to do with his life today. He didn’t steal that ticket. That’s his money."
But John Derendinger Jr. of Hyannis said fair is fair.
"If he’s on probation, then he shouldn’t gamble as a violation of probation," said Derendinger, who was ringing a bell for the Salvation Army. "And he shouldn’t be able to get the winnings."
What do you think? Should they let the dude keep the winnings? Or bust his butt back to jail for violating his probation?
Clever Ad: Rear Windshield Wiper as Dog’s Wagging Tail
Here’s a clever ad from dog food brand Iams: a rear windshield decal and a prop to make the wiper looks like the dog’s tail wagging!
Link (with video of the ad "in action")
Drunken Moose is Christmas Lawn Ornament in Alaska
What do you do with a bull moose, drunk on fermented crab apples, tangled in Christmas lights? Alaskan just named him "Buzzwinkle" and make him into a tourist attraction!
… the juiced moose had certainly seen better days than Tuesday, when he became a bewildered tourist attraction, parked in the courtyard of Bernie’s Bungalow Lounge as shoppers clicked by with their Nordstrom bags.
"He just has this goofy look on his face," said Rick Sinnott, a Fish and Game biologist who came to check on him and guessed he’d probably eaten too many crab apples from an old tree in Bernie’s yard.
"He’s either drunk or in gastric distress."
Brazilian Ocelot Born
There are only 26 endangered Brazilian ocelots in American zoos. One of them was born September 23rd at the Lousiville Zoo. They named him El Conquistador.
El Conquistador garnered his name when at 2 days old he wandered from his mother’s side and squeezed through fencing into a hallway for keeper staff on the back side of the exhibit.
“And he did all this when he was unable to see,” McMahan laughed. “He was so young, his eyes were still closed. So, we named him El Conquistador because he is definitely an explorer and conqueror.”
The kitten’s birth is significant because his father Itirapua is one of the very few “founder stock” ocelots, whose genes are critical for survival of the species. Link -via Fark
(image credit: Kara Bussabarger, Louisville Zoo)
Nine Famous Jewels from the Movies
Quick -how many movies can you name with a plot that revolved around a gemstone? There have been quite a few! And you’ve probably seen most of these Nine Famous Jewels from the Movies.
Whether they be real, items of legend, or completely fictitious, jewels from the movies are definitely “the stuff that dreams are made of”. With story arches, background, and in some cases almost a personality all their own, these so called “props” could easily be seen as characters themselves.
Link -via Geek Like Me
Mickey Mouse Mural for Baby’s Room
Image: Crazy Monkeybutt [Flickr]
Joey Ellis painted this mural for his son’s room based on the 1933 Walt Disney cartoon "Mickey and the Mechanical Man." It took him 3 months to complete: Link [Flickr set] - via Cartoon Brew
Scotland Spent £125,000 for New Slogan: Welcome to Scotland
Tired of their old catchphrase "Best Small Country in the World," Scotland spent £125,000 with for this new slogan: Welcome to Scotland.
The new artwork was unveiled at Glasgow airport yesterday by culture minister Linda Fabiani. She said: "These images will welcome people arriving in our country and Scots coming home, giving everyone a taste and glimpse of the very best of Scotland.
"This is not about developing flashy slogans.
"This is about showing what a modern, vibrant and successful country Scotland is."
But Labour MSP Jackie Baillie said: "If ‘Welcome to Scotland’ is the best Alex Salmond’s government can come up with, it shows the SNP have had an imagination bypass. It sounds more like a road sign at Berwick than it does a must-do invitation to visit our country."
That’s not the only rebranding going on in Scotland. Prestwick airport also had a new slogan:
Prestwick airport got the slogan "Pure Dead Briliant" as part of a £3million upgrade last year. But a logo featuring a cartoon drunken Scotsman sparked outrage.
Must be from the same people that did the epilepsy-inducing Olympics logo!
