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Conventional wisdom says that communities will save on health care by getting people to lose weight and quit smoking. But a recent Dutch study finds that, compared to obese people and smokers, healthy people place a greater burden on health care systems! The reason: it costs more to care for people who live longer. The study found that healthy people lived about 84 years, costing $417,000 in health care from age 20 on. Obese people live about 80 years, costing $371,000, and smokers lived 77 years, at a health care cost of $326,000.
“This throws a bucket of cold water onto the idea that obesity is going to cost trillions of dollars,” said Patrick Basham, a professor of health politics at Johns Hopkins University who was unconnected to the study. He said that government projections about obesity costs are frequently based on guesswork, political agendas, and changing science.
“If we’re going to worry about the future of obesity, we should stop worrying about its financial impact,” he said.
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This Walkalong glider is controlled by the air your body moves, but at first it looks just like magic! It was invented by Tyler MacCready, who was 10 years old at the time.
Link [LiveLeak] – via Sanity Factory
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Thanks to some gassy eight-grade boys who couldn’t keep it to themselves (and instead made it a sport), Camden-Rockport Middle School in Tennessee Maine has now banned farting:
According to this week’s Fire Cracker school newsletter though, the joke’s on the boys as the penalty for "intentional farting" is now a detention.
"Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS," the newsletter said. "It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!"
According to a group of seventh-grade students milling around downtown following Friday’s storm-related early release, the eighth-graders’ escapades are well known in the school.
Link (Photo: Christian Borstlap and modelmaker Quist, blogged as previously on Neatorama here) – Thanks John!
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When it comes to sunscreen, it seems that it’s your health or the coral reefs’. A new study finds that sunscreen ingredients are killing coral reefs:
Four commonly found sunscreen ingredients can awaken dormant viruses in the symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae that live inside reef-building coral species.
The chemicals cause the viruses to replicate until their algae hosts explode, spilling viruses into the surrounding seawater, where they can infect neighboring coral communities.
Zooxanthellae provide coral with food energy through photosynthesis and contribute to the organisms’ vibrant color. Without them, the coral "bleaches"—turns white—and dies.
"The algae that live in the coral tissue and feed these animals explode or are just released by the tissue, thus leaving naked the skeleton of the coral," said study leader Roberto Danovaro of the Polytechnic University of Marche in Italy.
The researchers estimate that 4,000 to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers annually in oceans worldwide, and that up to 10 percent of coral reefs are threatened by sunscreen-induced bleaching.
Link (Photo: Department of Marine Science, Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy) – Thanks Jee!
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The Panamanian golden frogs live near a noisy mountain stream, so croaking does it no good. So it has evolved a clever way to communicate to rivals and mates: it waves to them!
Hilary Jeffkins, senior producer of Life In Cold Blood, said the semaphoring behaviour of the Panamanian golden frog was very unusual.
"Normally, frogs would croak to get their message across but it’s too noisy," she said. "An extra mechanism they’ve evolved is to wave to each other."
Sadly, right after the BBC One Series Life in Cold Blood crew filmed the frogs, a fungus infection wiped out the entire frog population. The film thus captured the Panamanian golden frog’s last wave.
Link | Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Metafilter
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Liao Wei-Chueh and colleagues at Lite-On Technology designed the Moldable Mouse, made of modeling clay covered with a nylon and polyurethane blend fabric. Like the name implies, the mouse will retain its shape when molded.
This mouse, which on the 2007 Red Dot Award for Design Concept, can be
tailored specifically to an individual’s hand shape for that oh, so perfect fit.
I’m guessing that the mouse’s potential for office creativity (either that or sexual harrassment) is tremendous: Link – Thanks Anne!
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*SQUEAL* This felted bacon scarf by etsy seller chrischunski is so awesome I was yipping with delight!
This is a fun felted bacon scarf. The loose red, pink, and white merino wool has been welt felted with warm, soapy water and agitated to hold its shape. Nothing is sewn, knitted, or crocheted in this piece, though I did use needle felting to reinforce some spots. (Technically, knitting or crocheting something and then felting is called fulling.) It is a bumpy rectangle bacon shape, and it measures approximately 41” x 9.5” at its narrowest near the middle and 11” at its widest near the ends. It looks like a real slice of bacon, with all the striations of fat and meat. The pictures don’t do it justice. If you want, e-mail me and I will try to send you better pictures. It’s like wearing a delicious, delicious work of art! I kind of don’t want to sell it, but I know I can’t prevent it from fulfilling its felted destiny.
Seriously, do a search on “bacon scarf” and look at the other bacon scarves out there. They use a paltry two colors, and they don’t look as realistic as this! Also, those scarves didn’t take hours to make by hand! This literally took me hours. I am so proud of it!
Too bad it’s sold out (just earlier today, darn it!) Quick, make more Chris! Link – Thanks Nadja Robot!
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Photo: mleak [Flickr]
Photo: mleak [Flickr]
Carnegie Mellon University art student and Flickr user mleak is working on a project called From Whence It Came which involves etching processed lunch meat with a laser cutter:
These are my testers for a project I’m working on using processed lunch meats etched with a laser cutter. Ultimately, I would like to show the entire process from animal to ambiguous pink slice of meat over the course of a package of lunch meat, beginning here with bologna. This neat packaged disc of food has always seemed so far removed from its source.
Link [Flickr] – via Make, thanks Adam Fuhrer!
Oh, and that’s not all: in her Atkins Nightmare project, mleak set out to create an all-carb sandwich complete with laser-etched fixings!
Photo: mleak [Flickr]
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This image is telling about the bumblebee Bernard who wanted to impress his friends with an experiment. It was one of these boring days and they were as usual looking for some nonsense to get involved in and succeeded in switching on an electric shaver. And Bernard, for the first time in his life, completely freed himself from his beautiful yellow and black fur. But then, under the shouting and cheering of his mischievous friends, he watched in the mirror and had to recognize that the result didn`t please him as much as he expected. But hey, it will grow again….
There’s also an article (in pdf format) about how the image was made. Link -via Dump Trumpet
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Chung Dha Lam, a student at Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam in the Netherlands got the idea of his animated business card after receiving a special book called magic moving images. By using a printed overlay animation to vamp up his regular old business card, his mission was to catch more attention and make the receiver remember the card better and stand out from the others thus ensuring that it doesn’t get thrown away – as most business cards usually end up.
“Less is more and keep it simple”. - Chung Dha Lam
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No doubt lots of hot dogs, hamburgers and brats were consumed in honor of the Super Bowl on Sunday (we stuck to chicken wings at my house). I was doing some research for another article when I came across something called ‘Hot Dog Variations’. I guess I had really never considered Hot Dog Variations before. I mean, sure, there’s the chili dog and the Chicago dog, but other than that?
Yeah. Apparently there’s a whole world of hot dogs out there I haven’t even considered.
When I was soliciting ideas for my upcoming trip to L.A. on mentalfloss, more than one Flosser suggested that I try out Pink’s. I fully intend to, because the Martha Stewart dog sounds delicious – mustard, relish, bacon, tomato, sauerkraut and sour cream. My husband will probably enjoy the Ozzy dog, named after the Prince of Darkness himself. It’s a polish sausage with nacho cheese, American cheese, onions, guacamole and chopped tomatoes.
In Venezuela, expect to be offered an incredibly wide variety of toppings for your dog. Just a few that might be found include carrot shreds, french fries, corn niblets, garlic sauce, chili sauce, mayo and tartar sauce.
In Columbia, you’ll find the perro caliente comes with mashed potato chips, strings of ham or bacon, ketchup, mayo, mustard, onions and pineapple sauce.
West Virginia likes to top their hot dogs with chili sauce – not so weird – and sweet cole slaw.
From what I understand, Sweden loves hot dogs. One of the most popular variations is the “tunnebrod rulleor”, a dog wrapped in flatbread and stuffed with various toppings. Mashed potato is apparently a local favorite.
Georgians (especially those in the southern part of the state) enjoy scrambled dogs. You can find it in Columbus, Ga., at Dinglewood Pharmacy, where your dog is not complete without dill pickles, ketchup, mustard, chili, onions and oyster crackers. Lots of people also say your meal isn’t complete unless you top it off with an icy Coca-Cola, since it also originiated in Georgia.
Guatemalans know there’s nothing like topping your hot dog (“shucos”) with more meat. In addition to toppings like boiled cabbage, mustard and mayo, you have the option to add bacon, pepperoni, salami, chorizo or longaniza to complete your shuco.
The granddaddy of the shuco is sold in Antigua, Guatemala and is called “La Ballena” – the Whale. You get chorizo, longaniza, salchicha, ham, bacon, pepperoni, german ham and sausages, chicken breast, beef steak fajitas and polish sausages. It’ll set you back between $5 and $7 depending on the toppings. I have a friend who might move to Guatemala after hearing this. His idea of a perfect meal is one which has a “meat trifecta”, so this would be right up his alley.
Although ‘hot dogs’ can be found Down Under, a more popular option in Australia is called ’sausage sizzle’. It’s a barbecued sausage on bread, optionally with condiments and onion. ‘Sausage sizzle’ is a versatile word, though – it’s kind of like the word barbeque. It can be used to describe food, but it also describes a gathering of people, grills and adult beverages (at least that’s what barbeques consist of in my world). Corn dogs have all kinds of aliases – battered sav, dagwood dog and pluto pup.
These are only a few examples – I’m sure there’s strange toppings to be had on hot dogs all over the world. What’s the speciality in your area?
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Photo via One Large Prawn
Is it Caption Monkey time already? Well, last week Neatorama reader MariV won a free Meet the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats book by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford. And this week, it could be YOU, if you submit the funniest caption.
But first, the book: Meet the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats features Kitteh and Pip, the hobo cat stars of Ape Lad’s famous old timey webcomic. This neat book compiles over 250 comic strip, including never before seen drawings.
If you want to win, please read these (darn simple) contest rules: place your caption in the comment section. One caption per comment please, but you can submit as many as you can think of. The funniest caption (as always, Adam’s pick) will win his book.
Good luck (but if you don’t win, you can get your own copy at Lulu)
Update 2/8/08: Congratulations to lordunger #158 for the winning caption, picked by Adam “the man” Koford himself: “i AM an ewok.”
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When the Sound of Music was released in South Korea, it was so popular that one theater owner sought to maximize his profit by showing it more often. His solution was to shorten the movie by cutting out all of the songs!
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Photo: fliegender [Flickr]
Flickr photoset "24 fps" is a neat collection of screenshots of old movies where they still tell you that they’ve reached "The End" of the movie! Link (too bad many are not annotated as to which movies are from) – via zacislost
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I learned something new about Christopher Walken: before he became an actor, he was trained as a dancer in musical theater.
Here’s a clip of him dancing to Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim. (This was in 2001, so he was 58 at the time) Awesome! Link [embedded YouTube]
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Dutch design company Studiomeiboom gives a new meaning to book light. Their white plexiglass "book" lamp, cleverly shaped like a heavy tome, is named The Enlightenment in honor of the intellectual movement of the 18th century.
If you’d like to lighten your room (and lighten your wallet as well), here is the: Link – via Aqueos
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Theyyam is an ancient ritual worship that is still practiced in Malabar, the northern region of Kerala (southern part of India).
This one above is Kandakarnan, a spirit who eats dead bodies. The dancer’s costumes are made from cloth and coconut leaves, with ornately designed, not to mention tall, headgear. The ring of fire completes the costume (goes to show how brave the dancer is – I imagine the costume is quite flammable).
Beelzebug has a few more fascinating photos: Link
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Yes, that was a rabbit inside a refrigerator. In 1943, the maker of Coolerator Refrigerator decided to use a cute bunny locked inside the food compartment to tout the appliance’s selling point:
This "contented rabbit" lived in the food compartment of a Coolerator Refrigerator throughout the recent Furniture Market show in Chicago to demonstrate that there is a constantly changing flow of pure, fresh air within an ICE Refrigerator which is sufficient to sustain life. Because the current of air passing through the ice compartment was constantly purified and refreshed as it passed over the Ice, the rabbit lived in comfort, although the door was tightly closed….
Link – via Full Body Transplant
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Dolphins, long considered the world’s most intelligent, sensitive and sociable creatures, have a secret: they can also be wanton killers:
The first was initially believed to show a dolphin fishing for salmon – until closer examination revealed a relentless attack on a porpoise, its body spinning round with such force that its back was broken and its soft tissue shattered.
Marine experts now believe that these displays of attacks on non-rival, non-predatory, peace-loving porpoises and, more shockingly, of dolphin infanticide, may have always taken place.
It is only now, with dolphins’ more human-friendly behaviour taking them closer to tourist boats and beaches, that the violence is being witnessed first hand. Until the shocking realisation, dolphin-watchers in America had believed they were watching the mammals at play with their young.
Link – via The Wide World of Timbo
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Larger Picture at jonathan.beaton
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the common ancestor of hundreds of related languages and dialects spoken in Europe, northern Indian subcontinent, Iranian plateau and most of Central Asia. Though its existence is accepted by most linguists, they couldn’t decide on exactly when PIE was spoken (some said in the Early to Middle Bronze Age whereas others placed it as early as the Late Stone Age).
This neat "language tree," illustrates the evolution of modern languages from PIE. What’s even neater is that PIE is supposed to be a just one branch in an even larger language tree.
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Ochre Jelly, who made the famous Stephen Hawking Lego, is at it again. This time with the cast of Futurama (I <3 Nibbler!).
Hurry up and make the rest of the characters, Ochre Jelly! Link – via The Brothers Brick
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"I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying."
– Woody Allen, film director and actor (b. 1935)
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We all know broccoli is terrible stuff so it comes as no surprise that war has broken out in the vegetable garden. You need to take command of the asparagus and destroy the bastardly broccoli. Collect the vitamins, and watch out for the killer flies.
Link -via Pointless Sites
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