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A quick update about the Mystery Sale: Thank you to everyone who has participated! Your purchase helped a great deal to support the blog.
As many of you know, right after we announced the Mystery Sale yesterday, our servers crashed because of the traffic. While it was a painful experience, this elucidated a weakness in the way we set up the servers which I didn’t realize before. We’ve taken steps to solve the problem (which, of course, involves more and more hardware).
Looking back, we’ve had many of these growing pains – Neato started on a shared hosting platform in 2005 (which cost a few bucks a month). Since then, we’ve had to move to ever larger, more complicated and thus more expensive hosting platforms. Instead of fretting over outages and meltdowns, I choose to view them as milestones in the growth of the blog (and the shop too, now).
All this is because and for you, dear Neatoramanauts! So from all of us here on Neatorama, thank you! We couldn’t have made it this far without the blog’s loyal readers (and hopefully, loyal customers – or soon-to-be one – of the Neatorama Online Shop). I hope you will help spread words about the blog by telling your friends and family about it.
Because of the interruption, I’m extending the Mystery Sale a little while longer – if you haven’t gotten yours, there’s still time. Don’t miss out: Link [Update 5/6/09 - Time's Up! Thank you for all of you who participated in this Mystery Sale! For those who missed it, maybe next time!]
W00t! I’m happy to tell you that we’ve just started a new partnership with BuzzFeed, one of the neatest websites on the Web about, well, things going ’round the Web.
I’m sure plenty of you have gone over to visit Buzzfeed, but for those who haven’t, it is a website dedicated to things that have gone or will go viral (heck, it’s tagline is "the viral Web in realtime." I don’t know how they do it, but Buzzfeed is consistently in the leading edge of what’s hot on the Intertubes.
You can see what’s going on over at Buzzfeed on Neatorama with the widget on the blog’s navigation sidebar. And in the near future, I hope you’ll start seeing more on Neatorama’s content on BuzzFeed, cuz we’d like to be BFFWBF (Best Friends Forever With BuzzFeed – see what I did there?)
Link – Thanks Eric!
I’m a big foe of multitasking: I find that I can’t concentrate and actually get less things done when I try to do multiple things at once (i.e. parallel processing) rather than just doing ‘em in series. Perhaps I’m old fashioned that way, but science appears to be on my side.
Here’s a very interesting article by John Tierney of The New York Times about the science of concentration and how it may be possible in the future to have a gadget that actually boosts your concentration by using lasers:
“It takes a lot of your prefrontal brain power to force yourself not to process a strong input like a television commercial,” said Dr. Desimone, the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at M.I.T. “If you’re trying to read a book at the same time, you may not have the resources left to focus on the words.”
Now that neuroscientists have identified the brain’s synchronizing mechanism, they’ve started work on therapies to strengthen attention. In the current issue of Nature, researchers from M.I.T., Penn and Stanford report that they directly induced gamma waves in mice by shining pulses of laser light through tiny optical fibers onto genetically engineered neurons. In the current issue of Neuron, Dr. Desimone and colleagues report progress in using this “optogenetic” technique in monkeys.
Ultimately, Dr. Desimone said, it may be possible to improve your attention by using pulses of light to directly synchronize your neurons, a form of direct therapy that could help people with schizophrenia and attention-deficit problems (and might have fewer side effects than drugs). If it could be done with low-wavelength light that penetrates the skull, you could simply put on (or take off) a tiny wirelessly controlled device that would be a bit like a hearing aid.
Link (Photo from the always entertaining I Can Has Cheezburger)
Scientists are one step closer to finding the cause for autism. In a new study, Joseph Piven of University of North Carolina and colleagues found that children with autism have enlarged area of the brain called the amygdala:
"We believe that children with autism have normal-sized brains at birth but at some point, in the latter part of the first year of life, it [the amygdala] begins to grow in kids with autism. And this study gives us insight inside the underlying brain mechanism so we can design more rational interventions," said lead study author Dr. Joseph Piven.
A normal-sized amygdala helps a person process faces and emotions, behavior commonly known as joint attention.
"When you see a face, you scan it, identify if it’s friend or foe and make a decision about whether to move forward or avoid it," said Dr. Barry Kosofsky, chief of neurology at Cornell Medical Center, who was not affiliated with the study.
UNC researchers conducted diagnostic assessments, in addition to the MRI scans, to monitor the children’s behavior. They found toddlers with a large amygdala also had joint attention problems.
We all know about Mount Rushmore and the Great Sphinx of Giza, both carved in situ without the intention of ever being moved. Such sculptures are often referred to as living rock. Others, like these, are not so well known. From places you may expect to find them, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia to the far flung reaches of Ethiopia and Bangladesh, most were carved in ancient times. In almost all cases there are no extant records which explain how they were built without the aid of modern technology. Yet here they are.
Quazen blog has a list of 9 incredible architectures sculpted out of rocks:
China has many a Buddha dotted throughout its extraordinary landscapes but the Giant Buddha of Leshan is unique in that it was carved directly out of the cliff face – just look at the people at the feet of the statue. The sculpture, which is seventy one meters (or over three hundred feet) tall dwarfs the tourists that flock to see it. It is positioned so that it faces Mount Emei and stands at the meeting place of three rivers. Although the Government of China has promised a restoration program, the statue has suffered from the effects of pollution, particularly over the last twenty years. Fortunately, the statue was not damaged in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
Remember the days before Nick Jr, Cartoon Network, video games, and iPods? What did kids do for fun? They listened to records!
Here’s a bunch of interesting photos of kids music record covers. Some of them have really neat cover art. If you’re of the right age, they may bring back some memories… If not, just revel in the love of the 70s retro!
From Nancy Dorsner’s blog Dabbled:
Not long ago, my parents were cleaning out their attic, and sent me a bunch of old records (remember those things?) from when I and my brother were kids. I thought they were too cool not to share – some for the memories, some for the interesting album artwork.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Dot.
LiveJournal blogger Archmage got his wife to crochet him a Cthulhu ski mask for a recent sci-fi-themed costume party.
From the always spiffy Boing Boing:
My buddy Frank’s wife Dianna whipped up a Cthulhu ski mask for him to wear at a recent costume party, and we were all amazed at the sheer blinding awesomeness of it. It even has a mouth-hole so that you can be an Elder God and still kick back a brewski
Link – via boingboing
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.
Leptotyphlops carlae was discovered by biologist Blair Hedges in a jungle on Barbados last year. It’s only four inches long as an adult and as thin as a strand of spaghetti.
A cafe in Knoxville, Tennessee is offering a new caffeinated delight. It’s coffee made from beans that have been, shall we say, processed through the digestive tract of a small Southeast Asian mammal prior to brewing:
Kopi luwak is named after the animal that gives the coffee its … uh … full body. The bright-red coffee cherries are eaten by the luwak, which is a cat-like relative of the mongoose in Southeast Asia.
After a few hours of digestion, the beans come out the other end. They’re picked up off the forest floor, cleaned and roasted. Because of this “all natural” processing, the coffee is said to have a rich and heavy flavor, with hints of caramel or chocolate.
“It’s delicious, amazing,” said the coffee shop owner Sharif Harb. “There’s no other coffee like it — rich, almost syrupy.”
Link via Instapundit
Google Maps: Link
You’d walk your pet dog, so why not a pet boa constrictor? That’s exactly what Leon Kidd, 25, did when he got his pic snapped by Google Street View. Thank goodness, Telegraph was there:
Leon Kidd, 25, who has five snakes, was photographed with his 10ft red-tailed boa Nibblez as he carried her along Clarkson Road in North Earlham, Norwich, last summer.
Mr Kidd, who lives in nearby Gentry Place, said he goes out for walks with the female boa almost every day in the summer.
Despite her size and appearance Nibblez loves the outdoors and sliding around in the grass at Earlham Park.
Tired of getting burglarized regularly, a bakery in Split, Croatia, decided to solicit the protection of a certain Hollywood action star. At least in spirit:
The posh bakery shop in Split, Croatia, had often been broken until they put up the poster of the karate champ with a sign saying: "This shop is under the protection of Chuck Norris."
Now the bakery hasn’t had a single burglary for more than a month. "People seem to respect him," said a sales assistant.
Link (Photo: Europics.at)
Best Chuck Norris Fact in the comment about this post gets a Free Neatorama T-shirt. Ready, Set, Chuckify!
Update 5/13/09 – Congratulations to chrome who won with this bakery-themed Chuck Norris Fact: the bakers briefly switched the bear claws with “chuck norris claws” how ever the lack of survivors ran down business.
Amos Avery had a very good reason for making a booger ball.
When my daughter Ellen was four I started teasing her that I was saving all of my boogers in a big booger ball. I don’t know why I told her that except that it was fun to watch her make that “grossed-out” face that kids make when they smell something bad or see a squished cat on the road. She always begged to see it so finally I told her that she couldn’t see it now but I would give it to her for her eighteenth birthday. Well, guess what – she’s turning eighteen and I’ve got to come through with a booger ball!
And he did! Not only that, but he photographed the process and posted it with instructions so we can all make our own booger balls. Link -via the Presurfer
It was 72 years ago today that the Hindenburg caught fire, resulting in the deaths of 36 people (35 onboard and one on the ground). So why did it catch fire in the first place? Nearly three-quarters of a century later, we still don’t know. But there are some theories out there, and here are a few of them.
This one is for all of the conspiracy theorists out there, but it was widely believed to be the culprit at the time thanks to three pretty credible believers in the theory: Hugo Eckener (pictured), who used to be the head of the Zeppelin company; Charles Rosenthal, commander of the Lakehurst Naval Air Station; and Max Pruss, the Hindenburg’s commander.
When Eckener heard the zeppelin had “exploded,” he immediately thought that someone had intentionally destroyed the airship. Pruss found it hard to believe that something as petty as static would ignite the fabric of the Hindenburg; he said he personally had piloted airships through thunderstorms and that they had even been struck by lightning with no ill effects.
So who would have done such a terrible thing? A couple of books have named the zeppelin’s rigger, Eric Spehl. The fire started in an area that he and his fellow riggers had exclusive access to, and another rigger reported seeing a flash like a flashbulb just before the whole thing went up in flames. Spehl’s hobby – amateur photography – made it seem likely that he knew which types of flash could serve as an igniter.
Another suspect was a passenger named Joseph Späh, a German acrobat who was traveling with his dog, Ulla. He drew suspicion because of his many trips to the freight room by the ship’s stern, supposedly to feed his dog. Stewards said he seems particularly irritated that the flight was running late, and others speculated that his acrobatic career would make it easy for him to climb around in the catwalks to plant a bomb. Späh was cleared and Spehl died in the fire, so we’ll never know if one of them was responsible. One rumor even said that Hitler ordered the disaster because Hugo Eckener was anti-Nazi.
Why the theory is probably wrong: Even Eckener changed his mind: when he later watched the tapes and learned that the ‘Burg had burned, not exploded, he reversed his theory to the static spark theory (see below). And no evidence of a bomb was ever found in the wreckage. They did find some yellow substance originally believed to be sulfur, which can ignite hydrogen, but it was later determined that it was probably just residue from a fire extinguisher, and none of the residue was found anywhere near the stern of the ship.
You know how when it’s particularly dry, you can shuffle along your carpet and shock the crap out of someone sitting on the couch? Same theory, but bigger. The Hindenburg was really behind on its flight schedule – more than 12 hours, in fact. To try to make up for lost time, they flew directly through a storm front with lots of humidity and electrical charge. Between that and a light rain falling at Lakehurst, the mooring lines probably got a bit wet. When they touched down to land, the lines would have grounded the frame they were connected to, but not the fabric stretched around the frame. So when the static electricity sparked, the fabric went up in flames.
Another sub-theory is that hydrogen gas was in the air, perhaps due to a leak, and the static spark ignited the gas. Both of these seem pretty plausible when you consider that historian Douglas Robinson recorded an eyewitness account from one of the passengers saying that he saw St. Elmo’s fire just before the fire fully broke out. Not the ‘80s movie starring Demi Moore and Rob Lowe, the actual electrical weather phenomenon. He had enough time to tell his wife, “Oh, heavens, the thing is afire,” and showed her where the St. Elmo’s fire was occurring before the fabric ignited.
Coming from such a credible source – the former director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center – this one seems like it could be true as well. He says it’s not the fact that the ship was struck by lightning that was its downfall – the ship had been struck before and it was fine. It’s because it was landing as it was hit. As it landed, the Hindenburg dispelled hydrogen to lessen its weight and land. The hydrogen mixed with the oxygen in the air and the lightning ignited the fumes.
Why it could be wrong: The fire appeared in a wave motion, which Eckener believed was more apt to happen with a static spark than a lightning bolt.
Mythbusters tackled this one and declared it Busted, but I’ll tell you the theory anyway. The fabric (pictured) around the Hindenburg’s frame had been painted with what they called “dope,” a substance that made the fabric stiff and airtight. However, the substances it was made of were highly flammable in liquid form and still pretty unstable even when dry. The Incendiary Paint Theory says that the volatile substances reacted and caused the spark.
Why the theory is probably not true: The “dope,” which is actually cellulose acetate butyrate, is classified as burning easily if it catches fire, but it doesn’t actually ignite easily and will self-extinguish if there isn’t an external source keeping it burning. Some of the fabric survived the fire, which leads experts to believe the fabric didn’t actually start the fire. The Mythbusters test found just that – while the stuff used to paint the skin was definitely flammable, it wasn’t enough to ignite and destroy the Hindenburg all on its own.
It’s easy enough to believe: one of the bracing wires came loose, snapped, and punctured one of the internal gas cells. This would have caused the hydrogen leak believed to have happened in other theories. Then the static spark theory would have happened, igniting the fumes from the punctured cell. It’s also thought that when the wire struck the cell, it caused a spark which ignited the fire.
Turns out this guy didn’t have a ticket, and a fight ensued, and in the melee a gas tank got punctured. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Due to fear of swine flu, Afghanistan has quarantined its pig. Yes, the nation’s only pig, normally on display along with other exotic wildlife at the Kabul Zoo.
The pig is a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan, where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, and has been in quarantine since Sunday after visitors expressed alarm it could spread the new flu strain.
“For now the pig is under quarantine, we built it a room because of swine influenza,” Aziz Gul Saqib, director of Kabul Zoo, told Reuters. “We’ve done this because people are worried about getting the flu.”
Link -via YesButNoButYes
You can’t really appreciate the design of this scarf until you see how it looks when it’s rolled up. The picture is at the link, where there are also pattern directions so you can make your own.
From Craftster.org’s user everkutz, behold the Toilet Paper Scarf:
The roll is plastic needlepoint canvas and I did needlepoint on one side that would become the inside of the roll, and then used a brown yarn to crochet a “sheet” that covered the outside of the roll.
I think 18 “sheets” make up this scarf. It loosely wraps around her neck and then both ends hang at her waist.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.
Photo: Dave Bullock
Dave Bullock, one of our favorite photographers here on Neatorama, has just sent us his latest photos from his visit to the innards of the National Ignition Facility. Wired has the story:
It may look like one of Michael Bay’s Transformers, but this mass of machinery could soon be the birthplace of a baby star right here on Earth.
Using 192 separate lasers and a 400-foot-long series of amplifiers and filters, scientists at Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) hope to create a self-sustaining fusion reaction like the ones in the sun or the explosion of a nuclear bomb — only on a much smaller scale.
Sci-fi-inspired End of Days jokes may follow this historic undertaking like they did for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, but the science behind this advanced laser system is profoundly serious.
"Completion of the NIF construction project is a major milestone for the NIF team, for the nation and the world," said Edward Moses, the facility’s principal associate director for NIF and photon science. "We are well on our way to achieving what we set out to do — controlled nuclear fusion and energy gain for the first time ever in a laboratory setting."
The hope is that this reaction will release more energy than the lasers put into the target isotopes and perhaps redefine the global energy crisis in the process.
Native Names, the Interactive Map. Graphic: Oliver Uberti, National Geographic
A lot of places in the United States have their names derived from Native American words (I’m looking at you, Punxsutawney!). But do you know what they actually mean?
Our friends over at National Geographic have put together this really spiffy interactive map of the United States, with the translated meaning of the towns, lakes, and other localities.
Here are my personal favorites:
- Malibu, CA: It makes a loud noise all the time over there
- Topeka, KS: Good place to dig potatoes
- Chicago, IL: At the skunk place
- Yosemite, CA: They are killers
But the strangest one has got to be Loleta, a small town in Northern California. It means "let’s have intercourse."
Of course, the town founders claimed that the name means "pleasant place at the end of the tide water" but not according to William Bright, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Anthropology at UCLA, who wrote in his book Native American Placenames of the United States:
LOLETA (Calif., Humboldt Co.). In 1893, a resident, Mrs. Rufus F. Herrick, chose the present name, supposed to be from the local Wiyot Indian language. The Indian name was in fact katawóio’t, but an elderly Indian played a joke on Mrs. Herrick by telling her that the name was hós wiwítak ‘let’s have intercourse!’ – the latter part of which she interpreted in baby-talk fashion as Loleta (Teeter 1958).
Ouch! Link: Blog post | Interactive Map – Thanks Marilyn!
What are your favorites?
Pink salt from the Himalayas has been used for seasoning by chefs at fancy restaurants … and now, you can cook food directly on the slabs of the stuff!
The thick 8-by-11-inch piece of solid salt can be placed directly on a stove burner and heated gradually; it will not melt. Lightly brushed with butter or oil, it will fry eggs that come away with quite enough salt. The same goes for jumbo shrimp, fish steaks or fillets, thin slices of beef and portobello mushroom caps.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.
Tired of getting those "Your car warranty is about to expire" robo-call? I get those several times a week, even though I’m on the do not call list.
Well, thanks to some clever people over at reddit (oh, how I love reddit – can’t beat the sophisticated level of snark there …), we now have the identity of one of the spammers … and their phone number! Link
Will this stop them? Probably not – according to the Arizona Daily Star, it’s not just a one company operation.
A newfound frog species in the Boophis genus, photo: Miguel Vences
After finding more than a hundred new frog species in Madagascar over the past 15 years, scientists thought that they’d found everything – but a new study done by a team of international scientists had found up to 221 new species in the island country:
The work suggests that tropical amphibian diversity has been underestimated at an "unprecedented level" worldwide, the study authors write in the May 4 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"People think that we know which plant and animal species live on this planet," team member Miguel Vences, of the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, said in a statement.
"But the century of discoveries has only just begun—the majority of life-forms on Earth is still awaiting scientific recognition."
Which brings us to the obligatory statement from the President of Madagascar:
With apologies to the scientists
Psst, moms! Want to know the secret of having your husbands pick up some of the workload at home? Here’s the secret:
New research into the idea of "maternal gatekeeping" shows how attitudes and actions by the mother may promote or impede father involvement.
"For women who insist they have the gold standard around parenting and housework, men just tend to walk away," says Joshua Coleman, a clinical psychologist in San Francisco and Oakland. "They feel their own ideas about how the house should look or … how the children should be raised aren’t given equal share."
Kenney presented research she co-wrote at a meeting of the Population Association of America over the weekend. The study of 1,023 couples from 20 large cities in the USA found mothers were protective of their caregiving and educational engagement with the child but were less so for playtime activities that "were not considered threats to the mother’s caregiving identity," the paper says.
"Maybe he’s not more involved because mom is holding him back," Kenney says.
Sin Chew Daily (coincidence? I. Don’t. Think. So) and China Press reported a bizarre car accident that led to a man being Bobbitized in Singapore:
The daily reported that the incident occurred in a Singapore park where the couple met after work. To make matters worse for the woman, her husband had sent a private investigator to spy on her after suspecting that she was being unfaithful. The investigator said he had followed the woman and her boss to the park.
“On reaching the park, they did not alight from the car. Not long after, the car started to shake violently. After the car was hit by the van, there was a loud scream from the woman whose mouth was covered with blood,” he said. The woman later followed her lover to the hospital with part of the sexual organ.
The real estate market may be bad everywhere, but it is particularly bad in Victorville, California, where the real estate crash has turned quite literal. There, failed developments are being torn down because the cost of demolishing the houses are cheaper than completing and selling them.
Peter Y. Hong of the Los Angeles Times has more:
The Victorville demolition is one of the most dramatic ends to a bad bet made during the housing boom, but abandoned developments have become an all-too-common sight in California. Nearly 250 residential developments totaling 9,389 homes have been halted across the state, according to one research firm.
The developer of the Victorville project had hoped to sell the houses for more than $300,000 as they were being built last year, Forrester said. But reality quickly diverged from that vision. Home prices have tanked faster in San Bernardino County than any other Southern California county during the downturn. In March, the median home sale price for the county was $160,000, down 43% in a year, according to the San Diego-based research firm MDA DataQuick.
Officials of Guaranty Bank of Austin, Texas, which took over the development last year, were unavailable for comment. But Victorville city spokeswoman Yvonne Hester said the bank decided not to throw good money after bad.
"It just didn’t pencil out for them," she said. "They’d have to spend a lot of money to turn around and sell the houses. They just made a financial decision to just demolish them."
Link (Photo: Christina House / LA Times)
It’s often difficult to help children cope with crises and disasters, so FEMA came up with this idea (brilliant or silly? Your call): a children’s coloring book of disasters. Now, the coloring book has been yanked from FEMA’s website after some people complained:
The coloring book, titled “A Scary Thing Happened,” was created after the tornadoes in Glenville as a tool for children to use with a responsible parent or adult to help cope with the disaster, said Rose Olmsted, coordinator of the Freeborn County Crisis Response Team, on Wednesday. It has since been widely distributed across the country to aid children in other disasters.
Olmsted said she has not received a clear explanation from FEMA about why the coloring book is being taken down from the FEMA Web site, other than that the organization is redesigning its Web site and that there was a complaint from a parent about some of the images in the book. The cover features an image of the Twin Towers, with one tower already on fire and a plane approaching the other tower. A similar image is inside the book for children to color.
Sarah Stultz of Abert Lea Tribune has the story: Link – via On Deadline
