Archive for November 5th, 2009
Bird Drops Bread, LHC Shuts Down
You can’t make stuff like this up. A piece of a baguette dropped by a passing bird caused a shutdown at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.
The LHC is scheduled to be reactivated later this month. The bread incident won’t affect those plans. Link -via Boing Boing
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We Learn Our Language in the Womb
No wonder learning a new language can be more difficult the older you get. We were learning our individual languages before we were even born! That’s what researchers revealed in a release today by Current Biology.
It seems that fetuses not only warm to the sound of mother’s voice as they gestate, they also are being programmed in the direct patterns inherent in certain languages. By the time we are born, our dialect is determined.
Wermke’s team recorded and analyzed the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old. That analysis revealed clear differences in the shape of the newborns’ cry melodies, based on their mother tongue.
Specifically, French newborns tend to cry with a rising melody contour, whereas German newborns seem to prefer a falling melody contour in their crying. Those patterns are consistent with characteristic differences between the two languages, Wermke said.
ScienceDaily has a brief story about this new knowledge: Link
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Bald Hedgehog
Remember the bald bear we featured on Neatorama yesterday? Well here’s another case of unusual baldness – this time it’s a bald … hedgehog?
A bald hedgehog abandoned by his mother in a garden in Norfolk is being treated at a wildlife rescue centre in a bid to encourage his spikes to grow.
Baldrick, named after the character from the television programme Blackadder, was brought to Foxy Lodge wildlife rescue centre, Great Yarmouth.
He is now being cared for by Tonia and John Garner in the hope he can be eventually released into the wild. Treatment includes antiseptic scrubs and baby oil massages.
I’d suggest a laser comb to stimulate those spike follicles, but what do I know?: Link
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Swine Flu: Fear vs. Knowledge
Infographic: Raj Kamal
Raj Kamal of MintLife has a pretty nifty infographic about swine flu. Eye candy aside, I’m not going to take it completely at face value. For one, the graph lists graphjam.com (LOL!) and squidoo.com as source. This particular portion show above, however, looks logical enough to me 
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Peacock Spider
Photo: Jurgen Otto
This is a kind of jumping spider, and it’s only about 5mm in size. The males have a colorful pattern on flaps that extend from their abdomen during breeding/mating. In addition to this, they raise their back pair of legs and dance from side to side to win over their plain brown females.
Only found in Australia, they were classified as species Maratus volans because people originally thought the flap was for gliding after jumping. Wiki
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13 Other Leaning Towers
Hey, it’s hard to keep a tower on the straight and narrow! The Leaning Tower of Pisa may be the most famous, but there are towers that lean all over the world. Web Urbanist looks at thirteen of them, including the Round Tower of the Kilmacduagh Monastery in Ireland pictured. It leans 1.5 feet, but is in no danger of falling over. And its door is 26 feet off the ground! Link -via Unique Daily
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Animal Mummies
Thousands of mummified animals have been recovered in Egypt over the past hundred years. They include gazelles, shrews, rams, crocodiles, hawks, fish, dung beetles, and of course, cats. In the early days of excavation, they were considered unimportant, as things to be pushed aside in order to get to the treasure. Scientists are now studying them in detail for clues about the way ancient Egyptian humans lived. National Geographic looks at how the animals were preserved, and why. Link
(image credit: Richard Barnes)
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You Must Drive to the Recycling Center
David and Katie France of Dorset County, England thought they were being eco-friendly when they walked to dump to dispose of their recyclables. But they were met at the gate by an employee who told them they would have to bring their bags in by car! He cited safety concerns and warned the couple they may be hit by a vehicle. David France walked the 400 yards back to their home, got the car, and drove to the gate where they loaded their bags of scrap metal and took them into the center.
Mr France said: “It was farcical. I thought we were being doubly green by taking our recycling there on foot.
“But whatever good we did in recycling our waste was probably counteracted by the CO2 emissions we used up in our car.”
The council responsible for tip said that because there is no “dedicated pedestrian access point” it was unsafe for people to walk there.
Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: Flickr user hugovk)
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A Common Nomenclature for Lego Families
Children are rarely familiar with the names the LEGO company gives its various bricks and accessories. Giles Turnbull was delighted to find his son had his own terms for each piece. So he gathered more children, four in all, to find out what names they used, and assembled those names in a handy chart. Link -via Buzzfeeed
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Man Shows Up at His Funeral
The family of 59-year-old Ademir Jorge Goncalves of Santo Antonio da Platina, Brazil identified his body after a fatal traffic accident. The funeral was held the next day, which is customary in Brazil. Imagine their shock when Goncalves himself appeared at the funeral service!
What family members didn’t know was that Goncalves had spent the night at a truck stop talking with friends over drinks of a sugarcane liquor known as cachaca, his niece Rosa Sampaio told the O Globo newspaper. He did not get word about his own funeral until it was already happening Monday morning.
A police spokesman in the town of Santo Antonio da Platina said Goncalves rushed to the funeral to let family members know he was not dead.
“The corpse was badly disfigured, but dressed in similar clothing,” said the police spokesman, who talked on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to discuss the case. “People are afraid to look for very long when they identify bodies, and I think that is what happened in this case.”
The victim has since been identified and the remains sent to the correct family. Link -via reddit
(image credit: Flickr user Hipolito Luiz)
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What Is It? Game 114
W00t! It’s time for our collaboration with the always awesome What is it? Blog. This week’s entry is this strange looking object to the left: can you guess what it is?
Two prizes this week: the first person to guess correctly and the funniest (but ultimately wrong) guess will win a T-shirt from the Neatorama Shop.
Contest rules are darned easy: place your guess in the comment below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you’d like. Post no URL or web links – let others play (doing so will forfeit your entry).
For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog. Good luck!
Update 11/6/09 – the answer is:An exercise club, the 1897 patent says it was “for the purpose of testing the strength of the wrist and forearm”, additional weights could be attached to the bottom of it, patent number 578,230. Commonly known as Indian clubs, these can be found in a wide variety of sizes and weights.
Congratulations to Mr. Weaver who got it right first and to huh? for the um, very funny entry that I won’t repeat here. 
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VideoSift Clips of the Week
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I Can Has Swine Flu: H1N1 Virus Infected Pet Cat
Can your pet get sick from swine flu? The answer turns out to be yes. Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine has found a cat that contracted the H1N1 virus and got sick with swine flu:
On Wednesday, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported the first confirmed case of H1N1 in a house pet, a 13-year-old domestic shorthaired cat. The animal likely contracted the virus from its owners, veterinarians say, since two of the three family members living in the cat’s household had recently suffered from influenza-like illness. Late last week, when the cat came down with flu-like symptoms — malaise, loss of appetite — its owners brought it to Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine for treatment. The family mentioned to the vet that they had also recently battled illness, which led to testing the pet for H1N1.
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7-Eleven Wine
These days, it seems like everybody and their uncle are making their own wines. Even 7-Eleven (yes, that 7-Eleven). Here’s "Yosemite Road," the company’s brand of affordable Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon:
And, whoa, Yosemite Road is quite the bargain: Says the press release, both the Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon will sell for $3.99 a bottle. Who needs a Trader Joe’s, anyway?
"We prefer to think of it as value," says 7-Eleven spokesperson Carole Davidson, when Unfair Park said of the Napa Valley-produced product, "Wow, that sure is cheap." She also laughed. "But, yes, it is inexpensive. …
$3.99? Apparently, they’ve never heard of Two Buck Chuck! Link
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I, For One, Welcome Our New Furniture Overlords
Voices from the off 1 (2008) by Julian Göthe
Is that an alien being disguised as furniture or is it artwork by Julian Göthe?
This wonderful piece is part of Julian Göthe’s exhibition "Events during Flood" at the Galerie Buchholz in 2008 but just in case I’m mistaken let me just say I, for one, welcome our new furniture overlords: Link
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Denver to Singapore (and Back) in 5 Minutes
David D’Angelo took snapshots of his trip from Denver to Singapore via Chicago, Los Angeles and Tokyo (and back) and stitched them into a mesmerizing 5 minute video clip:
The creator put a ton of effort into filming as much of his trip as possible, and included some highlights like the automatic beer machine at the Tokyo lounge (at 3 minutes 50 seconds).
Gadling has the video clip: Link [embedded Vimeo clip]
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