In 1946, famed surrealist artist Salvador Dali and Walt Disney became
unlikely collaborators, and set to work on a short film called Destino.

The project was ultimately abandoned with less than 20 seconds of film shot, but six decades later modern Disney artists
completed the film using Dali’s original storyboards. The result is easily the strangest thing to come out of the Disney studios since… well, probably ever.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by gregs.

The Oops Design Awards have taken it upon themselves to do something that should have been done a long time ago -they have created an award for the ugliest, silliest and most useless product designs of the year. As you may have guessed, the lamp above is in the running for ugliest. It is the Oswine Lamp designed by Johanness Hemann. The nominees gallery actually has a few items I like, but for the most part it’s brimming with hillariously hideous items.

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Unlike her three husbands, Veitch says, the Mercury has “never lied to me, never cheated on me, and I can always depend on her.”

Veitch is on her seventh Midas muffler, and thank you, gentlemen, for the lifetime warranty. She’s had three sets of Sears shock absorbers, also through a lifetime warranty. And though the number seems high, she claims to have had 16 free batteries, courtesy of J.C. Penney and Firestone.

“She’s demonstrating the perfect way to take care of a car,” says Mike Hardie, director of global quality and productivity for Ford Motor Co., and that’s what makes her a menace.

“If everyone did that,” he says, “we’d never sell another one, so don’t spread it around too far.”

If the engine ever goes out, Veitch may be in trouble, because they are no longer manufactured. Link -via the Presurfer

The meat-eating Banjo has been dubbed Australia’s answer to the feared Velociraptor.

“The cheetah of his time, Banjo was light and agile,” said Queensland Museum paleantologist Scott Hocknull, who is among the scientists being credited with the discoveries.

“He could run down most prey with ease over open ground. His most distinguishing feature was three large slashing claws on each hand. Unlike some theropods that have small arms (think T. rex), Banjo was different; his arms were a primary weapon.

“He’s Australia’s answer to velociraptor, but many times bigger and more terrifying.”

The bones will eventually go on display to the public. Link -via Fark

Researchers in Japan and Spain have made an interesting discovery:  the Argentine ant, originally native to South America, is now found on every continent except Antartica thanks to humans.  This super colony may be the biggest of its kind in the insect world.  Even more fascinating is that these super colonies that thrive across Europe, America, and Japan, may in fact be one mega colony.

But it now appears that billions of Argentine ants around the world all actually belong to one single global mega-colony.

The team selected wild ants from the main European super-colony, from another smaller one called the Catalonian super-colony which lives on the Iberian coast, the Californian super-colony and from the super-colony in west Japan, as well as another in Kobe, Japan.

They then matched up the ants in a series of one-on-one tests to see how aggressive individuals from different colonies would be to one another.

Ants from the smaller super-colonies were always aggressive to one another. So ants from the west coast of Japan fought their rivals from Kobe, while ants from the European super-colony didn’t get on with those from the Iberian colony.

But whenever ants from the main European and Californian super-colonies and those from the largest colony in Japan came into contact, they acted as if they were old friends.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

It goes without saying that the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has some of the neatest collection of planes in the world, but this one is particularly intriguing: fly-powered aircrafts built by famed aircraft modelered Frank Ehling in the 1970s.

The AirSpace Blog has more:

Designed and built by famed aircraft modeler Frank Ehling in the 1970s, they are the smallest flying models the Museum owns. But more unusual than their size is that they are powered by flies – yes, you heard right, houseflies, the insect. Constructed from balsa wood and red tissue paper, the one-fly design has a wingspan of two inches, and the two-fly version, which features a delta-wing design, is four inches wide. In both cases, contact cement was used to attach the live powerplant to the fuselage.

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If you’re skeptical, there’s a video clip of another fly-powered airplane, this time by inventor Thomas Fetterman (oh, you can also buy the kit from his website)

Think your health care plan is bad? Consider yourself lucky that you don’t live back in the middle ages when "advanced" surgeries were done using these 20 seriously scary surgical tools. Yikes.

This one to the left is the Arrow Remover:

Arrow Remover - Not much is known about this tool, but it is hypothesized that it was inserted into the wound in a contracted position, with the central shaft used to grasp the arrow. The blades, which appear to have their sharp edges facing outward, were then expanded using the scissor-like handles…

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by yugosakimi.

By tracking individual cells in genetically modified salamanders, researchers have found an unexpected explanation for their seemingly magical ability to regrow lost limbs.

Rather than having their cellular clocks fully reset and reverting to an embryonic state, cells in the salamanders’ stumps became slightly less mature versions of the cells they’d been before. The findings could inspire research into human tissue regeneration.

“The cells don’t have to step as far back as we thought they had to, in order to regenerate a complicated thing like a limb,” said study co-author Elly Tanaka, a Max Planck Institute cell biologist. “There’s a higher chance that human or mammalian cells can be induced into doing the same thing.”

Researchers are hopeful, but also aware that early experiments in replicating this cell process can lead to uncontrolled growth, meaning cancers. Link

Consumerist has a great list article with 10 ads you’d never see today. In it, you’ll learn how the World Trade Centers could have been saved by asbestos, why you should wrap your children in cellophane and why doctors love Camel cigarettes. Hilarity ensues.

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One-year-old Tango became the star of the discussion programme after finding his way into the school hall where it was being recorded.

He ducked under a desk and headed towards the panel. At first, Dimbleby and guests including employment minister Jim Knight and Tory security spokesman Dame Pauline Neville-Jones were oblivious to his presence.

But as he pawed under the table he caught the eye of LibDem MP Julia Goldsworthy, who in astonishment mouthed the word ‘cat’ at the production team.

Meanwhile, Jackie Ellery of Newquay, England hadn’t seen her cat Tango in hours. As she wondered about his whereabouts, she sat down to watch TV.

She said: ‘My friend phoned me to say, “Have you seen your cat on the telly?” And there he was.

‘It’s lovely - he’s a mischievous cat anyway and because we live so close to the school he’s often in the school grounds.’

Tango, who returned to his owner that night, has since become something of a celebrity. Mrs Ellery said: ‘I’ve even been asked for his paw-tograph.’

Link - via Arbroath

The video:

[YouTube Clip]

This week’s collaboration with the What is it? Blog is super easy (maybe) - can you guess what the object above is used for?

Two prizes this week: a free Neatorama T-shirt for the first correct guess and another one for the funniest, but incorrect one. Place your guess in the comment section - one guess per comment, though you can enter as many as you can think of. Post no URLs or weblinks - let others play (if you do, you’ll forfeit the prize).

For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog - Have fun and good luck!

This latch hook rug was obviously made by a computer nerd. On the page is an image of the circuit board it is based on -it’s amazingly well-replicated.

Link Via CraftZine

Never before has Jabba looked so sensitive with his deep brown eyes and sweet little stuffed bunny. He’s part of the Star Wars Exhibit previously mentioned on Neatorama.

Link Via CraftZine

This stunning castle was created by Japanese art student Wataru Itou. It took four years of dedication to bring to fruition. It is complete with electric lights and a working train. The exhibit is called “A Castle On The Ocean” and is on display in Tokyo.

Link Via BoingBoing

It’s important to keep kids feeling comfortable and happy, even when they need to watch out for poisonous gas clouds -or at least, that must be the theory behind this Mickey Mouse gas mask sold in WWII. Paranoia and consumerism sure make for an interesting combination.

Link Via Consumerist

It’s been over six decades since Chuck Yaeger broke the sound barrier, but photos of fighter jets hitting Mach 1 has always fascinated us. Here’s a new photo of an Air Force F-22 Raptor  aircraft breaking the sound barrier while performing aerial maneuvers in the Gulf of Alaska:

The phenomenon is not well studied. Scientists refer to it as a vapor cone, shock collar, or shock egg, and it’s thought to be created by what’s called a Prandtl-Glauert singularity.

Here’s what scientists think happens:

A layer of water droplets gets trapped between two high-pressure surfaces of air. In humid conditions, condensation can gather in the trough between two crests of the sound waves produced by the jet. This effect does not necessarily coincide with the breaking of the sound barrier, although it can.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

With the passing of musical legend Michael Jackson, the game of comparative history can begin: who do you think is the biggest musical icon of the past century - Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, or Frank Sinatra?

Asylum blog has the low down comparing The King, The King of Pop, and the Chairman: Link

Urlesque blog has a selection of some of the neatest pen spinning tricks ever posted to YouTube. And to think that all I can do to my pen now is chew its end! Link

…homemade experiments can be just as complex and educational (while costing up to $100 less), so we found alternatives to each of the boxed kits that teach similar lessons just as well. Bottom line: Whether preassembled or drawn from kitchen cupboards, science kits can be educational and fun.

Link -via Geek Like Me

They are clumps of annelid worms, almost certainly tubificids (Naididae, probably genus Tubifex). Normally these occur in soil and sediment, especially at the bottom and edges of polluted streams. In the photo they have apparently entered a pipeline somehow, and in the absence of soil they are coiling around each other.

Read more about annelid worms and see more videos, if you have the stomach for it. Link -via a comment at Digg

Equipped with a hydraulic crane and a cage, hippo hunter Chris Hobkirk and his team from the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Association set to work. In a four-hour operation, they drained the tank and used poles to gently nudge the hippo into the 3m-long (10ft) steel cage before winching it to safety.

Mr Hobkirk – who has rescued more than 180 stranded hippos in the past six years – said it was a tricky procedure but he was glad with the outcome.

‘Maybe we got lucky with this one. In the past, I have removed hippos from small dams. In those cases, the water levels have always been much lower so this was different.’

Link -via Arbroath

No, not a tattoo though undoubtedly it would make an excellent anatomically-minded example that would rival this famous skull face tattoo we had before on Neatorama. The gruesome painting is actually printed paper by Paris-based photographer Laurent Champoussin.

Vanessa Ruiz of Street Anatomy asked Laurent what inspired his art series titled Cardiovascular Paper:

I’ve always been interested by the écorché model. I was inspired by the classical representations of Andréas Vesalius, Charles Estienne or Adrian Van Den Spieghel. My idea was to play with the partial, the uncovered (open/discover) of an essential part of ourselves. I also wanted to work on the propagation, the invasion. My will was to design the model, to file down it like a texture and I hope, somewhere like a poetry.

More at Street Anatomy Blog: Link | Laurent’s website and blog - via Cakehead Loves Evil

Fancy fast food takes regular old fast food and turns it into gourmet (looking) food. I’m sure it doesn’t taste as good as real four star cuisine, but it sure does look delicious. Best of all, there’s plenty of recipes so you can duplicate the efforts.

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