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Fans of the book will love these delicious cupcakes. They’d be great for any kids party, but that doesn’t mean adults won’t enjoy them too.
These are texas-sized snickerdoodle cupcakes. For frosting and decorations I used chocolate ganache (Moishe), canned vanilla frosting (Max), sprinkles, store-bought gumpaste eyes, and fondant colored tinted by hand.
Psychologists Paul W. Andrews and J. Anderson Thompson, Jr. argue that depression may be an evolutionary advantage developed early in human history. What could be good about depression?
Depressed people often think intensely about their problems. These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.
This analytical style of thought, of course, can be very productive. Each component is not as difficult, so the problem becomes more tractable. Indeed, when you are faced with a difficult problem, such as a math problem, feeling depressed is often a useful response that may help you analyze and solve it. For instance, in some of our research, we have found evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test.
Link via Instapundit
Photo credit: Guillermo Perales Gonzalez
YouTube user bengraphics created this montage of film clips from the past 100 years, demonstrating the evolution of cinematic special effects. It was originally just intended for a class lecture, but has gone viral. Featured films include The Enchanted Drawing (1900) Thief of Baghdad (1940) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). Run time: 5 minutes.
Via Geekologie
Dutch artist Peter Jansen creates polyamide and bronze sculptures that look like a split second in time. They don’t actually move, but they look like they are in motion. Perhaps appropriately, he started out as a physics student rather than as an artist.
Kazakhstan has commissioned BIG Architects to build a library and cultural center in the city of Astana. The design that the firm submitted in response is shaped like a Möbius strip — a structure that has only one side:
The building itself is a complicated juxtaposition of different ideas and concepts. It forms a spiraling circle around a strong vertical core that allows visitors to the library to move between floors. The museum’s curves form a möbius strip, so the interior becomes the exterior and back again; likewise the walls become the roof and the roof transforms back into the walls. The interior corridors are naturally daylit through geometric openings in the exterior shell, creating beautifully lit spaces perfect for reading.
To minimize cooling loads on the library, BIG Architects employed some advanced computer modeling to calculate the thermal exposure on the building envelope. Because of the warping and twisting of the exterior, some parts of the building receive more light than others. By taking that information, BIG was able to create a geometric pattern or “ecological ornament” to regulate the solar impact.
Photo gallery at the link.
You may not be able to travel to Kazakhstan to view the building, but you can experience the same one-sided sensation with our Möbius strip t-shirt, now on sale at the Neatorama Shop.
MacGyver Chef is a new series at the gadget blog Gizmodo about attempts to cook meals without conventional cooking implements. Author Dan Nosowitz has previously poached chicken and couscous in a coffee maker. In his most recent post, he experimented with steaming salmon and cilanto sauce in a dishwasher. You can view read a step-by-step guide and view photos of the process at the link.
The cheery-looking machine has long, multi-jointed arms embedded with an array of tactile sensors that help it optimize the lifting and carrying of humans. For safety purposes, RIBA’s entire body is covered in a soft skin molded from an advanced lightweight urethane foam developed by TRI. The soft skin is designed to ensure the comfort of patients while they are being carried. In addition, the arm joints yield slightly under pressure — much like human arms do — further increasing the level of comfort and safety.
A new study shows that elderly people who are overweight or obese have significantly less brain tissue than those of normal weight. The difference was 4% for overweight people and 8% for the obese in a study of 94 people in their 70s. The volunteers were followed for five years, and anyone who showed cognitive impairment was excluded from the final sample.
“The brains of obese people looked 16 years older than their healthy counterparts while [those of] overweight people looked 8 years older,” said UCLA neuroscientist Paul Thompson, senior author of a study published online in Human Brain Mapping.
Much of the lost tissue was in the frontal and temporal lobe regions of the brain, the seat of decision-making and memory, among other things.
It is not clear whether weight gain caused a reduction in brain tissue, or if a smaller brain contributes to weight gain, or there are other factors contributing to both. Link -via Lifehacker
(image credit: Flickr user erat)
Mark Wattson of Swindon, England was diagnosed with a ruptured appendix in August. He thought the doctors must have made a mistake, since his appendix had been removed in July! Nevertheless, his appendix was removed in a second surgery.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Mr Wattson said. “I told these people I had my appendix out just four weeks earlier but there it was on the screen for all to see.
“I thought: ‘What the hell did they slice me open for in the first place’?”
And that wasn’t the end of his troubles.
The blunder has left Mr Wattson jobless, as bosses at the shop where he worked did not believe his story and sacked him.
Wattson is considering taking legal action against the hospital. Link -via Arbroath
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Golden Retriever Takes on White Tiger Cubs
Isabella, a golden retriever and recently a first time mom, adopted these three white tiger cubs after they were rejected by their mother at the Safari Zoological Park in Caney, Ks. |
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Interview with Cyberstalking Suspect goes Pretty Well
All hell breaks loose when a local reporter enters a costume shop to interview its eccentric owner who is up on cyberstalking charges. I think she got the better of the exchange … |
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Mitchell and Webb: Casino Carnivale
Another hilarious short clip this week from the fantastic British skit comedy show, Mitchell and Webb. |
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900RR Go Kart
These guys put the powerful engine of a Honda CBR 900RR motorcycle into a go-cart, to make a rip-roaring real-live Mario Kart. The drifting and acceleration are quite impressive. |
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Autotune the Cats!
Some of the greatest cat meowing clips, melded together into an auto-tuned masterpiece of music – enjoy! |
Dorothea Lange captured some of the iconic images of the Great Depression. As such she became one of the founding figures of the golden age of American photojournalism. From sharecroppers to the Salvation Army, she recorded the times as they were then – and they were pretty harsh if the truth be told.
Lange took to roaming the streets taking pictures of homeless and unemployed people and this very quickly drew the admiration of local photographers. One thing led to another and she found herself employed by the rather harshly named Federal Resettlement Administration, later to become the Farm Security Administration (FSA). He job was to capture the lives and times of those affected by the Depression and to pass these images on – free of charge – to newspapers and magazines. The remarkable image of an ex-slave above was taken in 1938. Just over seventy years separates this shot and the Investiture of President Obama. One wonders if this woman – if informed of this future news by some errant time traveler – would choose to believe the shape of things to come.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
Michael Heagerty was already well known locally as the incumbent Syracuse Common Councilor. Now that he won’t be running for re-election as a Democrat, he is perhaps a little better known.
Mr. Heagerty fell short one signature to run for re-election as the Democratic nominee for his current position. However, had he signed his own name on the petition then he would have met the quota.
On Wednesday evening, a reporter broke the news to Heagerty that he didn’t sign. “I didn’t sign my own petition? You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by OddNumber.
