Archive for September 11th, 2008




Odd-Eyed Cat

Posted by Alex in Animal, Pictures on September 11, 2008 at 2:06 pm


Photo: Jorge Barrios [wikipedia]

Neatorama reader Jon Jason sent in this post from Scienceray titled Top 5 Animals with the Most Stunning Eyes – I was most fascinated with the cat with two different eye colors. It turns out, heterochromia (difference in coloration) of the eye is caused by the difference in concentration and distribution of the pigment melanin.

In cats, a form of heterochromia results in odd-eyed cats [wiki] – they are most commonly found in white cats and is due to the white spotting gene. In these cats, melanin granules are prevented from reaching one eye during development, resulting in a cat with one blue eye and one green, yellow, or brown eye.

 
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Bottled NY Tap Water

Posted by Alex in Food & Drinks, Pictures on September 11, 2008 at 2:05 pm

Truth in Hydration is a bottled water companyTruth in Hydration is the blog of Tap’dNY, a bottled water company that sells … New York tap water in bottles! To market their product, the company’s "street team" went about Central Park refilling people’s empty bottled water with good ol’ fashioned NYC tap!

Link – Thanks Jake Bronstein!

Update 9/12/08: Sorry, my mistake. The company is Tap’dNY, Truth in Hydration is its blog - Thanks Jake!

 
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NetFlix Origami

Posted by Alex in Arts & Crafts on September 11, 2008 at 2:05 pm

What do you do with that tear-off flap from your NetFlix mailings? Rather than throwing them away, how about making … a Netflix origami instead?

Link – Thanks FlapperT!

 
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Caption Monkey 42: Baby Bath Time!

Posted by Alex in Caption Monkey on September 11, 2008 at 8:15 am


Does anyone know the story behind this photo?

Yay! It’s time for Neatorama and Hobotopia’s Caption Monkey game. Funniest caption will win an original Laugh-Out-Loud Cats cartoon by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford.

Contest rules are darn simple: place your caption in the comment section. One caption per comment, please. You can enter as many as you’d like.

For inspiration, check out Adam’s blog. Good luck!

Update 9/13/08: Adam has chosen the winner! Congratulations to megiddo who won with this caption: “Hydroponic cabbage patch kids.“

 
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Remembering the Victims of 9/11

Posted by Alex in Everything Else on September 11, 2008 at 3:46 am


Photo: noamgalai [Flickr]

It was seven years ago that the September 11 attacks occured. Nearly 3,000 people died that day. Today, as a tribute to the victims of 9/11, take a look at the people who lost their lives and remember them: More …

 
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Pirate Fonts

Posted by Alex in Everything Else on September 11, 2008 at 3:42 am


This font is Windlass

The annual Talk Like A Pirate Day is coming up on September 19th – so to get your blog ready, here’s a nifty collection of Pirate symbols and fonts: Link – via Matt Cutts

 
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Superstitions Helped Mankind Survive

Posted by Alex in Science & Tech on September 11, 2008 at 3:41 am

Did superstitions develop to help mankind survive? Evolutionary biologist Kevin Foster of Harvard University and Hanna Kokko of the University of Helsinki thought so:

Darwin never warned against crossing black cats, walking under ladders or stepping on cracks in the pavement, but his theory of natural selection explains why people believe in such nonsense.

The tendency to falsely link cause to effect – a superstition – is occasionally beneficial, says Kevin Foster, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.

For instance, a prehistoric human might associate rustling grass with the approach of a predator and hide. Most of the time, the wind will have caused the sound, but "if a group of lions is coming there’s a huge benefit to not being around," Foster says.

Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine explains:

"Our brains are pattern-recognition machines, connecting the dots and creating meaning out of the patterns that we think we see in nature. Sometimes A really is connected to B, and sometimes it is not," he says. "When it isn’t, we err in thinking that it is, but for the most part this process isn’t likely to remove us from the gene pool, and thus magical thinking will always be a part of the human condition."

Link – via Slashdot

 
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Super Lice: Pesticide-Resistant Bugs Took Just 3 - 5 Years to Become Immune

Posted by Alex in Animal, Medicine on September 11, 2008 at 3:41 am

Overuse of antibiotics had given rise to scary antibiotic-resistant microbes, and now, the same thing is happening to head lice:

As school begins, health officials and parents across the country are bracing for this year’s bout of what some call "super lice," drug-resistant critters that fend off nearly all pesticides, even as experts say better treatments for the ancient, annoying condition may be waiting in the wings.

Researchers have been warning for years that head lice in the U.S. and around the world are developing immunity to the strong insecticides used in over-the-counter and prescription shampoos. It takes just three to five years for the bugs to adapt to a new product, despite claims to the contrary by the manufacturers, noted Shirley C. Gordon, an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University who studies persistent head lice.

Link – via Fark

 
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Guerilla Road Signs

Posted by Alex in Arts & Crafts, Car & Vehicle, Pictures, Travel & Places on September 11, 2008 at 3:39 am

To bring a smile to passer-bys, the Glenn Group installed these guerilla street signs all over downtown Reno:

The Glenn Group wrote sign copy, created layouts for the printer, and hung the signs. The design team’s primary challenges were to make the signs as authentic looking as possible, and to duck police officers and city officials during “installation.”

In a city where street art and renegade postings are not common, the signs inspired surprise, delight, and good feelings about the city.

Their little guerilla art project won an award at the 2008 Society for Environmental Graphic Design Award: Link – via RuebenMiller

 
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Missing Cat Came Back ... Nine Years Later!

Posted by Alex in Animal on September 11, 2008 at 12:18 am

Gilly Delaney thought that her beloved cat was killed by a car nine years ago – so it was a pleasant surprise when one day, the cat turned up alive!

An overjoyed cat owner has been reunited with her missing moggy – nine years after she wandered off from her family home. Gilly Delaney was left distraught after hearing her beloved pet Dixie had been killed by a car in 1999.

So it came as a big surprise when RSPCA officers turned up on Mrs Delaney’s doorstep – with her missing pet in tow. The officers, who scanned Dixie’s microchip, returned her to her rightful owner after they found her wandering less than half a mile away from Mrs Delaney’s home.

Link – Thanks Geekazoid!

 
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Neatorama Shop » By Artist » Mike Jacobsen T-Shirts

MC Mallet: Stop Mallet Time!

Posted by Alex in Gadget on September 11, 2008 at 12:18 am

Australia’s Vert Design Shop made this CNC cut flat pack hammer cleverly called MC Mallet – At $40, it’s way cheaper to go to a local hardware store. But then again, a real hammer is no where near as cool a conversational piece as this baby.

Link – via Vector Vault, Thanks Adam!

 
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Large Hadron Collider's Secret Emergency Stop Button

Posted by Alex in Pictures, Science & Tech on September 11, 2008 at 12:16 am

With all the hullabaloo over how the Large Hadron Collider will spawn a black hole that will swallow Earth, do you think that scientists will leave it up to chance? Noooo, of course not. They have a secret emergency abort button.

Thanks to Skepchick blog, we now have secret photos from inside the CERN research center: Link – Thanks Rebecca Watson!

Don’t miss: I Survived the Large Hadron Collider T-shirt

 
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